Code Veronica S
by enRAGEd
Summary: AU. Combining elements of CVX and DSC, plus all-new fight sequences, and now, with the one ingredient everything could use a bit more of: Shakahnna. Now complete. The final battle with Wesker comes to a grim conclusion.
1. Episode One: If I Had My Way

**A/N: **Hey all. I figure this might need a little explanation, but basically, Shakahnna had a contest on DeviantArt in 2009 to write/draw Shak x Wesker fan fiction/fan art, and this was my entry. Essentially, its Resident Evil: Code Veronica X, but with Shakahnna thrown into the mix. Originally, it was supposed to be a straight novelisation of all the Wesker cut scenes in CVX, but with Shak instead of Claire/Chris. However, as usually happens with me, it ended up taking on a story of its own and became larger. As far as knowing Shak goes, this is a brand new version of the Shak Morgan character from DMD, since she is supposed to occur earlier in the timeline. I have a backstory for this one figured out already that I might put up later. I suggest you essentially read my work as it pertains to Shak to get to know her better (and that's not shameless self-promotion, honest).

In other news, I've not been keeping up with my correspondence lately, due to a combination of laziness and full-time employment. By the time I get home, I just want to veg out and can't even think about typing up letters, and for that I'm sorry, because I don't want people who read and review my work to think it isn't appreciated. I'm always really happy to get new views on my work, and a review always earns a smile, so excuse me for being a jerk and not telling you so personally. In particular, I have to apologise to CJJS, who left some really thoughtful feedback, and whom I haven't been able to contact in almost four months. I don't want my reviewers to go unrewarded, nor to feel like I'm ignoring them; I'm just busy and tired. Thanks, everyone, for the support I've gotten; it means a lot to me, really. I hope you all enjoy this; lots of Wesker next week, when I update. Promise.

**Episode One: If I Had My Way...**

The guard's knuckles smashed into her jaw, snapping her head back with whiplash-inducing force. Blood trickled across her lip and over her chin. She leered perversely, watching as his face creased in disgust. There was a certain sadistic pleasure she took from his disapproval. She delighted in the way it undermined everything he did. After all, torture was useless if your victim enjoyed it. Of course, that wasn't to say she didn't get a heady satisfaction from the sensation of gore staining her features and the shock of anguish that accompanied it.

She'd have to remember that he didn't like it when people called his sister a slut. Or perhaps he was just angry that Shakahnna herself had claimed to have had sexual relations with her. The pelvic thrusting motion certainly hadn't helped matters.

"Umbrella's in _real_ trouble if all its interrogators are pussies like you," she mocked, spitting a gobbet of blood and saliva onto his grimy shirt that drooled down the front in a slick trail. It wasn't as satisfying as hawking up on a nice, clean uniform, but she would take her entertainment where she could.

His response was to hit her with a crushing backhand that rattled her teeth in her head and her brain in her skull. In truth, he was a big man, tall and broad with an immense barrel chest and powerful limbs, the kind that made each blow a potential killer. To make matters worse, she was tied up, completely incapable of mitigating his considerable strength by blocking the strikes. The fact remained that he was a shoddy interrogator. He was too easily goaded and his aggression made it so that he would probably kill her before he came anywhere close to breaking her.

Of course, that was why they had promised to bring her a professional within the next couple of days, but that didn't mean he was any less eager to try in the meantime.

Shak's reaction to it all was simply to egg them on, regardless of what they had in store for her. She wasn't certain why they were torturing her; she didn't know anything of any particular interest, but they were insistent that she tell them about other S.T.A.R.S members. Other than herself and the team she had been assigned to, which had been wiped out almost a year ago, she didn't know of any members of the organisation who had turned on the corporation. The thought that there might be others filled her with pride.

But she knew that if she admitted to knowing nothing then they either wouldn't believe her and continue regardless, or believe her and have her killed. The sooner she was out of the picture, the sooner someone else would be singled out, and if nothing else she could at least make it a few months before that happened. Simply taking up their attention wasn't good enough for her though. In the last week she had succeeded in sawing quite a few centimetres into the upholstery of the chair she was lashed to, and she suspected that it was only a matter of time before it fell apart completely.

Then she'd see if the broad-shouldered aggressor could take half of what he dished out.

Unfortunately, there had been a surprise waiting for her today that filled her with equal parts dread and intrigue. When she had awoken from her unconscious state, because calling it sleep would have been far too generous, they had been stoking the fire in the wrought iron stove squatting in the corner of her cell. She had noticed on previous occasions that the wall was festooned with various implements, among them branding irons, but she hadn't known whether they were merely decorative until now. They had emptied the embers into a brazier that was now crackling merrily nearby, and her host was eyeing it intently.

She grinned a bloody grin, nonverbally asking him to take his best shot.

Hefting one of the heavy metal rods, its end shaped in the form of the segmented octagon she knew to be the logo of the company he worked for, he pushed it into the smoking debris that was smouldering in its stand. He stoked the fire, motes of orange light dancing around the tip of the brand as he raked it through the coals, before withdrawing it with an overly theatrical wave of his wrist. She scoffed and made a comment about how he looked like a fairy, which made him bristle.

He reached forward and gripped at the lapel of her dark green jumpsuit, wrenching the material until the top three buttons popped one after the other, exposing the flesh at the top of her chest. Forcing down the objections she would otherwise have had, she wiggled her eyebrows lecherously, playing up to his previous forcible insistence that he wasn't attracted to her. Growling, he thrust the tool forward, searing the skin beneath her collarbone and pressing down until it began to burn deeply into her muscle.

She suppressed a groan of agony fused with masochistic enjoyment, twitching in her seat at what would have been an exceptionally pleasant experience, had it been in better company. The smell of cooked meat wafted from the wound as he pulled the iron free, tearing her epidermis apart where it had fused to the end. Although the emblem now charred onto her body brought her no satisfaction, the sensation was the closest she had gotten to a wank in quite a while. She blew out a breath that she didn't realise she had been holding and opened hazy eyes to stare up into the petulant face of her antagonist, who was looking on with disgust.

"You're a sick little whore," he informed her bluntly.

"False, thou fucker," she responded, doing her best to keep her tone from slipping into the sultry murmur that should otherwise have come from a branding, "I'm not the one using fire to hit on sexy redheads. Besides, if anyone's a whore then it's that sister of yours; she's a real cat in the sack. Rowr!"

The jab blackened her eye, but even the skull-splitting impact didn't stop her from bursting out laughing at her own wit and his overenthusiastic punishment. He seemed all too ready to strike her again, with the branding iron this time, but paused when something rumbled overhead. Dust drifted from the ceiling in a faint mist. Her mirth dwindled as she strained her ears to hear what he had also cocked his head to listen to.

Sure enough, there was another concussive tremor, preceded by the whistle of something plummeting to the ground several hundred yards away. It was the sound of a bomb falling and detonating; Shak was almost certain of it.

"Uh-oh! Someone's in trouble!" she sang blithely, kicking her feet happily in what she hoped was not obviously an attempt to work up some slack in the cord tying her down.

"Yeah, you, if you don't shut the fuck up," he snapped, still trying to make out the noises from above and clearly finding her an unwanted distraction. Considering that she had spent the last week winding him up as though it were her life's calling, she believed there was no reason why he should expect her to stop now.

"Nu uh, it's definitely you," she corrected, flexing her hands and feeling the gratifying give that she had been working on preparing for just such an emergency over the course of the last few days, "because as great as you are at tying knots, and you're a genuine fucking boy scout, complete with all the cock-sucking in the woods, you forgot to take into account the fact that this place has really shitty furniture."

With that, she snapped her legs upwards, the bonds lashed around them sawing neatly through the chair's supports, and kicked him firmly in the crotch with both feet. The impact tipped her seat backwards, where it shattered into tinder against the floor. Moving her stiff limbs as quickly as she could manage given their disuse and the pounding they had endured in recent days, she pulled her knees up to her chin and slipped her bound wrists under the soles of her bare feet. She rolled backwards, slipping into a combat stance as he finally shrugged off the blow to the testicles and came after her.

She dodged a heavy blow aimed at her head, grinning broadly when he proved to be as uncoordinated as she had expected, given that he was used to punching people who were tied down. Her reply was to slam her fists into his temple in a hammer blow that sent him reeling. She followed up with a kick that caught him solidly in the stomach and dropped him to one leg, breathing heavily. Features still stretched into an expression of absolute delight, she wrapped her fingers around the brazier and lifted it, its contents still burning within its conical top.

"My turn!" she told him gleefully, before dumping the embers in their entirety over his head.

His clothing burst into flames as the sparks ignited them and he took off shrieking towards the back of the room. She was impressed that he had the presence of mind to remember that the water tank was in the chamber next door; she had been dunked in it several times and knew the layout of that room just as well as she did her own cell. Unfortunately, he seemed to have forgotten about the heavy maroon curtain that separated the two areas, which fell over him as he pitched headlong into it and immediately caught fire as well.

He collapsed into a funeral pyre on the threshold, scream transforming into a strangled gurgle as the heat cauterised his throat, blistered arms flailing in his deadly embrace with the cloth.

She set the unwieldy metal torch on the floor and wriggled her hands loose of the cord still binding her wrists, biting her lip as streaks of gore began to roll the lengths of her forearms from the shallow lacerations it caused. Eventually, she removed the tightly wound bracelets and threw them to the floor, now slick with her blood, which had made a passable lubricant. Before she could think about escaping from the cell, however, the door burst open behind her and a soldier clad in navy blue fatigues, clutching an AK-47, charged through. His eyes widened when he saw her, ensanguine and unrestrained at the centre of the room, a broad grin on her face.

Even as he levelled the assault rifle at her and snapped back the bolt, she snatched up the brazier for the second time, hurling it like a spear. The force of the throw sent the projectile cannoning into his torso in an explosion of hot ash, smashing the weapon out of his hands and knocking the consciousness out of him. Wasting no time, Shak ran to the wall and snatched a pair of the more brutal-looking cutting implements hanging from the brackets lining the chamber, before moving quickly to the door. The cinders littering the floor tickled the skin on the underside of her feet, though they weren't hot enough to cause much more discomfort than that.

She stooped and picked up the firearm lying beside the guard's crumpled body, lacing the strap around her shoulders so that the bulk of it was secured against her broad back. Almost as an afterthought, she carved a wide second smile in the man's throat, grinning as a spray of arterial blood splashed across her reddened cheeks. That way she wouldn't have any nasty surprises to worry about in the future if he woke up and decided to follow her. Since he was working for the company, she didn't expect anyone would be particularly upset about that, unless they were Umbrella scum too.

Taking her newfound arsenal, she skipped over the corpse and began to bounce up the stairs, mounting each step with a gleeful spring in her gait. Her prison was now her playground, with toys and playmates aplenty. In her wake, her interrogator lay blazing beneath his wine-coloured death shroud, his inferno reaching out to take hold of the building around it. That suited her fine; she was only planning on staying long enough to murder all the corporate stooges and get her stuff back. Her babies in particular were crying out for her.

The distant detonations continued beyond the stone walls, overlapping whistles of descent, followed by the rumbling seismic tremors that shook loose plaster from the ceiling in fine mists. They were getting closer, she realised.

She couldn't help but wonder exactly who was dropping bombs on her hosts, though she was well aware that there was no real point in speculating. It was possible that the attackers were a rescue party, but they couldn't possibly be there for her. No one knew where she was and, even if they had found out, she couldn't see her employers at S.T.A.R.S or the Terlawk Police Department launching a full-scale military incursion to a privately owned installation. Unless they had gotten the government involved, but even then that seemed like a stretch. She had to assume that no one was coming to find her, which mean that, although she could use the distraction to her advantage, the responsibility for escaping was ultimately her own. And if she didn't move quickly then they might blow her up by mistake.

As far as their identity went, anyone who hated Umbrella couldn't be all bad.

She could hear noises from the floor above through the door on the landing ahead, bells clamouring, boots hammering wooden flooring. From the sound of the footsteps, she assumed that they were making ready to repel an invasion; their movements were far too scattered to be an evacuation, but too purposeful to be panic. Wherever she was, they had professional soldiers there, which she imagined explained the bombardment. Either the opposing force wanted to soften up the military presence before sending in their own troops, or they were simply going to smash the place to bits. Either way, her need to get out remained undiminished.

As for the alarms, there was clearly more than one wailing its distress in the adjacent room. She didn't imagine that the fire she had caused would go undetected for long as it consumed the upper levels, and the bombing clearly warranted its own siren. She wondered if they had a "Shak-Attack" alert. It would have been a good investment, in her opinion.

The door above burst open, disgorging two men in similar uniforms to the one that had entered her cell, each carrying a rifle much like the one she now owned. Before either could fire, however, she whipped her right arm back and hurled the blood-slicked blade gripped in her fingers, watching as it described an arc in the air, embedding itself in the first individual's crotch. Even as he pitched backwards, screaming and clutching at his perforated groin, she congratulated herself for making her years of "knife-darts" pay off in a combat situation.

She one day hoped to find a practical use for all the expertise she had in drawing cocks on things.

The castrated male's partner hesitated as she continued to climb towards him, eyes widening, mouth frozen in a rictus of sheer terror. Behind her, the bottom of the stairwell was bathed in flickering luminescence from the flames, smoke and heat rising around her as though hell followed her ascension. Her hair shimmered like a molten cascade in the firelight and her emerald orbs glowed with cheerful, mischievous mania, mirrored in the broad grin plastered across her scarred features. The logo branded into the still-visible flesh below her throat made her look like an escaped B.O.W on the rampage. Looking for all the world like a monster rising from dark depths to eat him whole, her very approach had him paralysed with fear.

That or her sex appeal was blowing his mind, which seemed equally likely from her perspective.

Unfortunately, the spell she had unwittingly put on him didn't last. He raised his weapon, but cried out when the other saw-toothed iron knife came hurtling towards him. The leather-wrapped handle struck him stiffly in the shoulder with the wet crack of abused cartilage, throwing his aim away long enough for her to close the distance between them. She grabbed the barrel of his machinegun and forced it away as his finger tightened around the trigger.

The discharge left her ears ringing, the noise amplified by the close quarters, and the vibration rattled her entire arm painfully as bullets tore into the brickwork to her right. Balling a fist with her free hand, she slammed a fierce punch into his testicles, the firearm falling silent as his grip loosened on it. He let out a strangled grunt as he doubled over, before Shak slammed his rifle into his back with the audible crunch of fracturing ribs. Collapsing to his knees, the stab of pain from his spine distracted him away from the screams of his partner as the redhead ripped the blade out of the gory wound in his crotch.

Reasoning that there needed to be a substitute, she jammed her toes into the warm meat, wriggling them playfully at the new, and not entirely unpleasant, stimulus. His bloodcurdling shrieks began anew.

She gripped the back of the second male's head and pulled it back, exposing his jugular to the serrated edge of her crude implement, before carving deeply into it. As his throat began to spray crimson, she kicked him stiffly in the back, watching as he tumbled limply down the steps, his head lolling sickly and painting the entire stairwell with his blood.

Turning her attention to the prone trooper, she twirled the knife quickly in her hand and stabbed it into his stomach. His wailing took on an all new level of strain as she sawed through his gut, eviscerating him with the precision of a medieval surgeon and delighting as steaming, rubbery tubes burst forth from his belly. They glistened in the light from the bulb above the landing as she wrapped her fingers around the exposed lengths, tugging them free and tossing them into the air behind her like streamers. She continued to pull until she jerked something free inside him.

By the time she stopped, his eyes were starring glassily at the ceiling, his struggling long since ceased, a faint copper taint around his lips from where he had bitten through his own tongue.

Shrugging, she retrieved her daggers, holding one in each hand as she kicked through the door that led to the upper level. There was the sound of splintering wood and then the oak panel slammed roughly into the head of a soldier standing behind it, most likely concussing him on impact. Even as he fell back, another man lunged for her, entirely unprepared for her to carve him into pieces with a flourish of her weapons. He collapsed, his neck torn open, his wrists spraying blood and his uniform trousers soaked with scarlet from his gaping femoral arteries.

Seeing the downed individual nearby, she leapt up and brought both feet down on his head, hearing and feeling his skull crack beneath her weight. She hopped in place half a dozen times, and then jumped on his ribcage for good measure, the trauma forcing a burst of gore from his mouth.

A third male ran at her, a metal baton clasped in one hand, the sight of the weapon making her blood run a few degrees hotter by itself. He swung for her, alarm appearing on his features when she lifted her forearm and blocked the attack with a limb composed of solid muscle. The blow gave her a shiver of numbness, but not much else; late night training with her more enthusiastic law enforcement lackeys had given her a tolerance for being beaten with nightsticks. She responded by ramming her forehead squarely into the side of his chin, grinning as she heard the satisfying snap of his jaw shattering.

Unfortunately, she was forced to step down from her human podium, and the rough-hewn boards that made up the flooring spiked her soles with splinters. Her boots began to cry out for her too.

Giving a muffled scream, her latest opponent staggered backwards, only for her to ram her blades up to their hilts in his sternum. No sooner had she done so than yet another guard appeared, this time behind the wooden counter that stood opposite the door. Having watched three of his colleagues despatched in short order, he racked the slide on his AK-47 and aimed it into her cherubic face, pulling the trigger as she vanished behind the upright corpse of the man still impaled on her knives.

His broad back absorbed the bullets, each round smacking wetly into his flesh as he floated through the air towards the desk, driven by the young woman holding him aloft. A stray shot grazed her arm, leaving a hot, skinless track in her flesh, but she pushed onwards. The bolt of his machinegun snapped shut and he cursed as the body kept coming, Shakahnna throwing it at him and forcing him to duck. She ducked too, rolling under the open area beneath the workstation and wincing as her own rifle jammed stiffly into her spine. Gritting her teeth, her grin faltering only for a moment, she swept his legs out from under him with a swift kick.

He slumped onto his back beneath the weight of his dead comrade and was ill-prepared for the underside of the female's bare foot to smack solidly into his throat, before slamming into his face over and over again. She turned his features into a colourful mask of swollen tissue, even as the trauma turned the area from her toes to her heels into a dark, angry mass of bruising. Caught up in the momentary bloodlust, she hauled herself up and straddled his chest, seizing his throat in one hand and bringing the other down, poking out his eyes with her fingertips.

She lifted her arm, gazing curiously at the viscous fluid, the colour and consistency of blackcurrant jam, which was adhering to her skin. Tentatively, she drew the tip of her tongue across the jelly, immediately regretting it as she gagged, finding that the flavour was where the comparison with blackcurrant jam ended. She coloured slightly, the unpleasant taste reminding her that she had gotten carried away in her escape attempt, probably as a result of the baton. And she was definitely missing her babies.

The man beneath her was clearly dead, though whether because his windpipe had collapsed after the first kick she had given him or through shock from losing his eyes, she wasn't certain. Wiping her messy digits on his shirt, she moved a hand to her latest injury, wincing as her finger grazed it slightly, though when it came back bloodless she reasoned that it was probably best to leave it alone. Painful as it most certainly was, it either wasn't deep enough to bleed or had been cauterised instantly by the hot slug, making medical treatment unnecessary for the most part.

Pushing herself up, she cast a quick glance around the chamber she had entered, noting that the small security detail there was dead to a man. The counter that divided the room was clearly supposed to be used for processing the prisoners that arrived and departed, and she hoped that she was the only one present in the building. She wasn't sure if she would have time to search for others before the place burned to the ground or the bombing run obliterated it. Aside from the piece of furniture she was currently crouching behind, the chamber was practically bare, with unadorned redbrick walls and bare boards for flooring.

Knowing that her beloved possessions weren't there, she stood up and once again retrieved her blades, this time from the cadaver draped over the last of the soldiers. That done, she hopped over the workstation, scattering some gore-streaked paperwork as she did so. As an afterthought, she picked up the baton as well, hooking the catch on the end to one of the belt loops stitched to her outfit.

She exploded through the next door, a titian titan bulldozing through her former prison on a mission of merciless mayhem. The five dumbfounded soldiers in the room beyond catered to her eagerness, charging towards her when they saw that their prisoner had escaped her confinement. They had clearly not paid enough attention to her bloodied clothing or weaponry, or they might have chosen a more reserved method for attempting to subdue her. As it was, not one of them had the sense to hold back and Shakahnna was reminded of a drove of lemmings, albeit less cute and more hairy.

The first man was met halfway between his original position and his target by the knife hurled from her right hand, which transfixed his throat and hurled him off his feet. He landed limply on his back even as she whipped out her newly acquired nightstick, parrying a blow with a club aimed at her head by the second advancing guard. She ducked beneath his outstretched arm, eviscerating him with an almost casual slash to his stomach and letting him collapse screaming onto his spilled intestines as a third male reached her.

She blocked and turned aside a solid right hook, before hammering his crotch with her tender foot, enjoying the pain as much as the blow it came from. After doubling him over, she laced her arm around his neck, pulling him into a tight headlock and reversing her remaining knife into a downward grip so that she could stab him between his vertebrae. Paralysed from the neck down, he flopped to the ground and lay moaning, slowly drowning in his own saliva as she passed over him, like the Angel of Death seeking first-born sons to slay.

Sliding her baton back onto its belt loop, she ducked to snatch the blade impaled through the first victim's windpipe, bringing both up in a pincer swing. They bit deeply into the next contestant's neck, but weren't sharp or fast enough to decapitate him completely. As such, he collapsed to the ground gurgling and clutching at the mutilations, hands slippery with the blood that sprayed forth as she freed her weapons with a pair of sharp twists.

The final member of the quintet opposing her backed away nervously as the last of his colleagues hit the floor, eyes wide with fright as she advanced on him, cruel, crude daggers dripping gore. Eventually, he bumped into the wall, weapon sliding from his limp fingers as he flattened himself to the brickwork. She leaned into his face, leering up at him as he shrank away, the fact that he was several inches taller than her giving the confrontation a flavour of the satirical. He lifted his hands, as though he were attempting to pacify her, and then he was gripping her shoulders, knuckles turning white, as she plunged the knife in her right hand to its hilt in his crotch. He tried to scream, but emitted only a reedy death rattle as she tore up through his pelvis and across his stomach, disembowelment following castration.

Smiling at what she perceived to be a perfect score, she jerked the implement free of his corpse with a wet sucking sound and allowed him to slump into a gutted heap at the base of the wall.

Taking in her surroundings quickly, her eyes glowed with delight when she spotted the large locker standing against the wall, stencilled with the letters "Contraband" in thick, black capitals. She wasted no time in charging over to the cabinet and subjecting it to a closer inspection. Though she couldn't be sure until she opened it, she was fairly certain that her equipment and, more to the point, her babies were being kept inside. Unfortunately, a heavy-duty padlock clung to the bolt and failed to budge when she reached out to rattle it.

When she realised that the metal surrounding the container's catch was rusting into disrepair, however, her momentary consternation evaporated entirely.

Resting her twin blades on a tabletop nearby, she took hold of the assault rifle on her back and hefted it, slamming the stock against the decaying section of the door like a personal battering ram. The steel protested against her focused strength, dirty flecks cascading like autumn leaves from the surface as she hammered her weapon against it over and over again. Eventually, she had battered back a sizeable portion of the blockade keeping her from her treasured possessions, enough to cause the bolt, along with the padlock, to fall to the ground with a dull thud.

Propping the machinegun against the foot of the locker for the moment, she hauled it open, searching the contents until her eager emerald orbs settled upon what she had been looking for. Hanging at the rear of the compartment was a pair of padded leather gloves, the fingers of which had been modified to end in vicious, razor-sharp knives. It had taken her several months to perfect the design and as far as she was aware they were unique. Losing them after what they had been through together would have been too much to bear.

Cooing softly under her breath, she reached for them, lifting them reverentially from their hook one at a time and sliding them gently over her callused hands, purring despite herself as she did so. They were still slightly stiff, young as they were, but they had been blooded and seen combat. They'd plucked eyes from sockets, pierced throats, sliced off ears, impaled hands, slid between ribs to puncture organs and sunk deeply into those sensitive spots that caused the most exquisite pain. It had taken her a while to get used to the idea of having longer fingers, but now they moved as an effective extension of her hands.

In a way, the talons made her look like a monster, but she was still very much human, still very capable of determining between good and evil. The distinction allowed her to do terrible things to the latter category, utilising all of the cruelty that humanity imbued her with, and the claws of her own creation, to dispense a brutal justice.

Having reacquired her precious babies, she swished them experimentally, slicing the air into transparent ribbons with each graceful flick of her wrists. She looked forward to letting them slake the thirst they had certainly developed during their week of captivity. A crash and the crackle of flames from the room that she had just left reminded her that she was working to the clock, however, and she grudgingly turned her attention back to the cabinet.

What remained of her STARS uniform lay folded on a shelf, little more than shreds after the ordeal she had been through prior to her capture. She gave the bundle of rags a loving caress and consigned them to a quick and painless immolation at the hands of the fire she had started. It was as good a way as any to say goodbye to an enjoyable, if not particularly distinguished, career in law enforcement. Her thigh holster, still clutching the handsome bulk of her Colt .45 semi-automatic, on the other hand, was still perfectly operable. Moving her finger-blades carefully, she expertly took up the small harness and lashed it around her right upper leg, enjoying the feel of its weight against her muscle again.

Her equipment belt was also waiting for her and she spared a few moments to say a silent prayer to the inefficiency of corporate bureaucracy. Even within the structure of clandestine, illegal operations like the one she was now imprisoned in, paperwork and chains of command still existed, and so her items had been spared from disposal. The bulky black band was stuffed full of ammunition for her pistol and an assortment of other semi-useful knickknacks that she had horded throughout the years, including a few spare pouches for other interesting paraphernalia she might find.

She slipped the accessory around her waist, once again delighting in a reassuring and familiar bulk, this one hugging to her hips. It was nice to feel a little less naked.

Turning around, she retrieved her knives from the counter that they were resting upon and hooked them at her sides, reasoning that it was always a good idea to have more sharps. Seeing nothing else in the locker that caught her eye, she turned away, leaving the Kalashnikov where it was. She disliked the assault rifle's bulk and its adverse effect on her manoeuvrability; the highly preferable Colt made it largely superfluous now anyway.

She skipped across the room, past the pile of bodies by the door she had entered through, blowing them a kiss for their hospitality as she did so. Her spirits were considerably higher now that she had her gear back, particularly the claws that once again twitched at her fingertips, eager to rend flesh and punish the guilty.

Their opportunity came sooner than she thought it would as she slammed her bare sole into the wood of the next door, kicking it open with a splintering noise that earned the attention of the chamber's lone occupant. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, as the majority of the guards had been, most likely entering his middle years, but was much better equipped than his now-deceased colleagues had been. A tactical vest was strapped around his torso, his rifle hanging on its sling at his back, a 9mm sidearm affixed to his thigh. He seemed ready to repel the invasion and immensely confused to see her standing where the rest of his unit should have been.

Grinning broadly, she didn't stop to introduce herself, electing instead to charge at him, flexing bladed digits as she brought her arms back to launch her attack. She pounced, thrusting her hands forward in a stabbing motion that would have seen him skewered on all ten sleek knives had he not thrown himself to the side at the last moment. Landing in a feline crouch, she shifted her weight onto her hands and moved her back legs so that she was facing him a second time, watching as he rolled up into a standing position, hand clutching for his handgun.

Shaking her head, she swiped at him playfully and knocked the gun from his grasp, the points of her talons narrowly avoiding scoring deep grooves in his arms as she did so. His response was to dart out of her reach, closing his fingers around the combat knife affixed to the left shoulder portion of his jacket. He held his own blade with a seasoned grip, the kind of drilled discipline she had come to expect from the company's military.

But Shakahnna had been a cop; she hadn't learned how to be good with sharp objects because some tool had told her it would be a good idea. The majority of her martial arts training had been self-taught, fighting back against people with more bravado or fear than common sense. It made them unpredictable and dangerous, more so than anyone fighting from a rule book could ever be. People with rules usually didn't try to bite your ears off when things got tough, nor did they throw furniture at you or come at you with broken glass bottles. They didn't grind their fingers into your eyes or scream like they were on fire when they were right next to your head in a desperate attempt to throw you off your game.

The banality that training tended to breed was actually quite comforting.

That in mind, she lunged forward again, watching as he twisted his weapon in his hand to parry a slash meant to disembowel him. Steel clashed against steel as they struck and disengaged cleanly. She favoured him with a coy raise of her eyebrow, congratulating him on his opposition thus far, given how brief her fight with the others from his group had been. He responded with a stab aimed at her chest, intended to slip between her ribs and tear through her heart, but she caught the strike with her claws, trapping the blade amid her talons. When he tried to pull it back out of her grasp, she tugged back, keeping them trapped in a bladed embrace.

Laughing heartily, she continued the dangerous stalemate for a few more seconds, delighting in the frustration that was becoming evident on his face. Agitation took over and he dove at her, forcing the knife towards her stomach, but she turned him to the side, thrusting her knee into his gut for his trouble. He recovered quickly, which was fortunate for him because the redhead was already on the offensive as he spun back to face her. She slashed at him over and over, chasing him away as he retreated to avoid the daggers that threatened to slice him into pieces, deflecting those swipes that he could with his own.

His left hand caught her wrist as she attacked, restraining her movements, and his weapon became entangled in her claws for a second time. The resulting mess of metal twisted her fingers into interesting and somewhat painful positions, but she held tight to their second grapple. He risked his footing, bringing his boot down on the bruising on her toes, which made her cry out. Despite herself, the noise had not entirely been one of displeasure.

His face creased with confusion, but quickly hardened again when she began to push against his grip with her strong arm, leaving the other, weaker limb tangled with his. She forced up, wriggling her digits until she was tickling his cheek, watching as his grimace became more and more pronounced with each fraction of a millimetre her strength earned her. In reply, her own lips pulled back from her teeth in similar increments, showing her glee.

A sharp metal point pushed into skin, creating a divot in the unshaven surface, before it edged deeper, slowly sinking into the flesh and drawing a thick, crimson droplet that trailed along the line of his jaw. Then it jabbed inward, rending his features apart, cleaving into ivory pegs and slicing them away from their roots, flaying his tongue, and setting him screaming. He threw her off, but she was insistent, ramming her forehead into his nose and listening to the knot of cartilage within disintegrating. His head snapped back and she clamped her maw around his exposed neck, biting into his throat, severing veins and arteries alike as she chewed through his jugular.

His knife slipped from where it was locked and sliced into the muscle of her forearm, scraping bone. She felt a rush of light-headedness wash over her, a horrifying chill that made bile rise in the back of her throat, and realised instinctively that shock had hit her like a club to the spine. Forcing it down, she drew back, slamming her head into his for a second time in an attempt to clear away the numbness that was so much more dangerous. Pain seized her, quieting the hideous sensation creeping through her body, and its banishment was welcome.

She thrust her claws into his chest, feeling him fall limp on her blades with no small degree of satisfaction. Releasing a pent up breath of exhilaration, she tilted her hands and allowed him to slowly slide from her blades into a heap on the floor.

She stood for a moment, grinning manically, and then grunted and put her hand to her head as a stab of anguish from the two blows she had inflicted made her stagger slightly. It wasn't the most pressing injury she had suffered though, given that her left arm was now streaming with gore, soaking into the glove on her hand and making her fingers slick. She needed a tourniquet and bandage for it, as soon as possible.

And once she'd fixed herself up, there was the small matter of escaping a burning building to take care of.

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----

The small outpost was now fully ablaze, flames rising almost a full storey above the slated roof, the smoke billowing even higher into the night sky. An undulating pillar of charcoal grey bisected the clouded expanse overhead and, on the horizon, dozens of others could be seen in all directions. The dry stench of atomised stone and the heady perfume of pulped vegetation hung heavily in the atmosphere.

Shakahnna stood in the muddy courtyard, enjoying the open air for the first time in a full week. She was glad to have something on her feet at last; it had been a pleasant surprise to find that the last of her opponents' footwear had been the right size for her. They were good boots, as she had found out when he had stamped on her toes, but now they were hers. She had also appropriated his tactical vest for the extra pocket space and protection. It was muggy and she felt uncomfortably warm, particularly with the raging inferno to her back, but she would bear it.

The best part of her new ensemble was the pair of new handguns she had appropriated. She knew that the ammo for the .45 was limited and the 9mm pistols she had acquired would give her a needed substitute in the event that it was necessary. Umbrella were capable of some unique abominations that took considerable effort to kill, she knew, and the extra firepower would be appreciated if she happened to run into any. You could never tell with the corporation, particularly in a state of chaos like the one currently happening all around her.

She looked into the sky, scanning the overcast twilight with eager eyes, and saw the dark shapes of the bombers, silhouettes of metal carrion swooping through the gloom. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that they were angels, raining punishment upon the guilty below. Whatever the metaphor, she was free and it was because of them, to a degree.

Saluting the shapes in the shadows, giving her thanks for the opportunity they had granted her, she moved off to join the carnage.

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----


	2. Episode Two: Red On Black

**Episode Two: Red On Black  
**

The landfall of the Hive Capture Force team had been preceded by destruction of almost biblical scale. From the air, huge craters could be seen gouged from the land, immense, muddy wounds brimming with detritus from the initial bombardment. Buildings lay in ruins, roads and bridges had been smashed to gravel, and all the while coruscating fingers of flame reached out to ensnare and consume. Soon there would be no metre of Rockfort Island that had not been desolated completely by the fire, crawling across it like a ravening beast, devouring as it went to sate an unending hunger.

All the better for Albert Wesker.

As the leader of the unit assigned to the assault, subjugation and subsequent investigation of the isolated facility, it was his duty to appreciate the larger picture surrounding their operation. The utmost secrecy was necessary, and not only to ensure that the Umbrella Corporation remained unaware of the true perpetrators of the attack. Most thought him dead, and his resurrection was to remain a closely guarded secret until his resurgence could be of maximum utility and benefit to himself. It was fortunate that any evidence of his involvement, or that of his new employers, would be cleansed in the most thorough manner imaginable by the inferno gradually engulfing the entire installation.

The rocky outcropping that formed his perch offered him an unprecedented vantage point from which to watch the penal colony, owned and operated by his former organisation, burn. His enhanced vision allowed him to tease apart the individual tongues of flame as they writhed to taste the smooth midnight blue of the evening sky. Even as he observed, his superior olfaction could discern a myriad of scents rising from the smouldering rubble below, the acrid smoke and stench of decaying flesh pervasive above all others, until he could almost taste them upon his tongue. The sounds of raging conflict, roaring fires, and the slow, mournful moaning of the undead reached his ears, carried upon a warm breeze that prickled the bare skin of his forearms and face.

H.C.F's incursion had been brutal in its speed and efficiency. Even before the initial aerial bombardment had drawn to its conclusion, his unit had made its arrival, engaging the facility's personnel in heated skirmishes across its length. He had allowed his subordinates to act at their discretion, instead occupying himself with the experimentation necessary to fully evaluate his newfound abilities. His enhancements were yet untested in a practical environment, and he had been eager to match himself against opponents with the strength and endurance of the company's Bio-Organic Weapons.

The possibilities had left him giddy with anticipation, or at least as giddy as one could be without acting in an undignified manner.

His initial trials had yielded satisfactory results; he had surpassed each and every creation of his former employers. Umbrella had nothing in its arsenal that posed even the slightest threat to him any longer. The true proof of that was yet to come, however.

Before absconding from the corporation, he had taken possession of some sensitive documentation pertaining to the descendents of one of its founders. Alexia Ashford, the officially deceased prodigy and former chief researcher of her family's Antarctic enterprise, had apparently not perished the way many had believed. Furthermore, she had placed herself in cryogenic suspension in order to facilitate the incubation of a new viral strain within her body. Lord Spencer, the organisation's sole surviving founder and current chairman, had concealed the truth of this matter for one and a half decades. Wesker had used this information to secure his position with the Tricell company, one of Umbrella's competitors in the fields of both pharmaceuticals and B.O.W research.

His objectives had been made clear; Alexia, or an intact sample of her prototype virus, was to be returned to them at all costs.

It would be the duty of his unit to learn both the whereabouts and status of the young woman, preferably before she was awakened from her fifteen year sleep. His contacts at the prison island of Rockfort, where her brother was currently serving as commander, claimed that there had already been sightings of her there, however. For this reason, he had attached himself to the force attacking the island facility rather than the expedition to the Antarctic, despite its logical appeal.

The young woman's innovations were supposedly greater than even those of his erstwhile colleague, William Birkin, whose considerable advancements he was now the beneficiary of. It would be his personal task, and pleasure, to ascertain the truth of that conjecture and gain her cooperation, either through diplomacy or force.

It was his search for Lady Ashford that had necessitated a more reserved approach to the island's initial cleansing. Due to her value, he had ordered that the base's most vital structures be left undamaged in order to facilitate a more thorough investigation, the better to ensure that she was obtained unharmed. As such, the bombardment had targeted the installation's infrastructure and minor outposts, effectively decimating the military presence's ability to redeploy its soldiers in response to the threat. The risk to her well-being was therefore reduced, while the surviving personnel were made vulnerable to the ground-based assault.

Alfred, her twin and the last of their line, had been proving something of an irritant for his subordinates. His martial prowess was something of a local legend and he had been leading a guerrilla resistance against H.C.F for the past several hours. Though Wesker himself could have easily ended the younger male's participation in the proceedings, he did not wish to lose a pawn of such potential value when it came time to negotiate with his sister. As such, he had given the order to detain rather than eliminate the remaining Ashford, though he remained at large and elusive, for the time being.

For his part, the black-clad male was currently addressing a vendetta that had begun with his death and resurrection some six months previously.

An appraisal of the list of inmates at the facility had revealed an intriguing coincidence; Claire Redfield, the younger sister of a man he still held considerable animosity for, was present. He sincerely hoped that she had been spared a swift demise in the initial destruction so that he could address that animosity with her, and perhaps learn the location of her sibling. A trail of activity, separate from that of his team, weaved through the ruins of Rockfort, and all roads led back to the grand palace, the seat of Alfred's power on the island. If it were indeed her then she would return there soon.

He stood in silent vigil over the battleground that had been ravaged by his arrival, like a dark and hungry god surveying the aftermath of its righteous slaughter, or a devil appreciating carnage for its own sake. And in his hush, he heard the rhythmic thud of footfall across the courtyard that lay beyond the wall to his back. Though the area was now abandoned to all but the undead, the cadence was unmistakably lively, not the shuffle of a ghoul or the more purposeful strides of a more sentient monster. This was undoubtedly human movement.

Ever a believer in good first impressions, he smoothed the front of his flak-jacket and the black uniform shirt beneath, the sleeves of which he had rolled to just above his elbows. He adjusted the sunglasses perched upon the bridge of his nose, the ghosts of flames dancing across the lenses, and vaulted smoothly over the high stone wall, landing in a low, silent crouch.

He lifted his head to take in his surroundings. His swift movement had brought him into a paved pathway flanked by two neatly trimmed hedgerows sprouting tropical ferns indigenous to the area. At one end stood a stone gate blocked by rubble, the only evidence in sight that something was amiss at the facility, providing one ignored the audible sounds of chaos and the olfactory assault. Opposite the collapsed opening was a short flight of steps that led up to a raised dais, bordered by an ornamental rail, which lay before the manse's main doors, formed from elegantly carved, veneered oak.

His hidden eyes watched as the individual he had heard approached the stairs.

She was female, this much was obvious. Even from her reverse he could make out the curvature of an hourglass figure beneath her bulky clothing, bust and hips proportionately wider than her waist as only a fully matured woman was capable of cultivating. Tresses the colour of copper wire descended to past her shoulders, lustre lost to streaks of grime and gore that stifled their vitality, only served to compound his confidence in that assertion.

It seemed unlikely, however, that she was the female he was looking for.

Chris Redfield was a dark-haired male, while she wore a titian mantle. Though he was broad, even someone who shared his genetic makeup would have struggled to build a muscle mass as extensive as her own. And while he stood at six feet tall, this woman was little over five and a half feet, a disparity that was unlikely to manifest in a fraternal pair. The evidence considered, he felt certain that she was no relation, though her physique suggested a military background and earned her his attention.

Her role in the events unfolding seemed largely elementary. The filth staining her hair was unlikely to have accrued in the hours since the commencement of the attack, and the dark green jumpsuit that she was wearing was similar in both hue and poorness of fit to the uniforms worn by the island's prisoners. That she had not been shaved to remove parasites threw some doubt on the matter, however.

Regardless of her loyalties, the fact remained that she was well-armed and armoured. She was clad in a figure-hugging tactical vest, which had clearly not been intended for an individual of her girth, while numerous equipment harnesses laced her ample frame. The straps and webbing snaking around her limbs and across her torso gave her the appearance of a stout tree stump draped in vines. At a glance, he could discern at least three semi-automatic handguns in holsters on her person, one on her thigh and one beneath each arm

While the majority of her arsenal looked to have been liberated from the facility's armoury, she wore a peculiar pair of bladed gloves that possessed a rather more personal aesthetic. He was not aware of any Umbrella installations that taught, or even permitted, the use of such weapons as standard practice and so it seemed probable, if not certain, that she was indeed a prisoner after all. He deemed the distinction to be largely irrelevant, however. The fate of both the island's personnel and the incarcerated population were of no concern to him, other than where those individuals might serve to yield answers as to the whereabouts of his objective.

Her presence was incidental but potentially useful; it was possible that she could provide him with information regarding either Lady Ashford or the errant Claire Redfield. If her assistance proved to be unproductive, however, then she could be easily despatched.

Regardless, he felt compelled to show this able-bodied young woman his attention; it would surely have been discourteous not to.

"Greetings," he called, rising lithely to his feet and striding forward into the light haloing the porch.

She spun on the spot, hands snapping up into a defensive position, stainless steel knives poised as extensions of her fingers in a striking pose. Her reaction put him in mind of an animal, almost feline in her instincts and reflexes, and the blades attached to her hands did nothing to detract from that initial impression. The speed of her movements was impressive for someone with her lack of augmentation and he felt an increase in anticipation for the coming engagement, hoping that her other abilities were similarly atypical of her ilk.

With her muscles pulled taut, it was clear even through the heavy cloth of her attire that she was in impeccable physical condition, much like Wesker himself. Since his rebirth he had indulged in extensive callisthenics, of the exhaustive nature that would have broken any other man before his time. As a result, his body mass had increased above and beyond its potential prior to his transformation in every conceivable dimension. His growing interest was only further piqued by her powerful build.

Her vibrant tresses framed a rounded face, marred by a mass of angry scar tissue that split her right cheek from the corner of her mouth to the area beside her earlobe. More recent wounds covered her features, ranging from bruising around her eyes to a welt of bloody scarring at the centre of her lower lip. She was battle-hardened, this much he could see from his primary evaluation of her form. However, he was surprised to find that, even after having been imprisoned on an island that had since become overrun with the living dead, she was smiling. There was an unhealthy stretch to her lips that suggested some form of mania, but an ease to the expression that spoke more of comfort than insanity. The movements of her eyes seemed languid, almost hazy with bloodlust. She appeared to be genuinely at peace with her surroundings, perhaps even delighting in them.

This above all earned a momentary quirk of one blond eyebrow, the inappropriate nature of her grin in the current circumstances causing him some small measure of consternation.

"Hey, big boy," she purred, acknowledging his presence in a manner that rankled purely through how crass it was. The jovial expression on her face split into a perverse leer as she looked him up and down, and he could not help but think that her uncouth manner left much to be desired.

"I believe we have yet to be acquainted," he observed, approaching nonchalantly and placing a hand to his chest, "my name is Albert Wesker. Might I enquire as to your own identity and affiliation?"

"Go ahead," she responded bluntly, figuratively suggesting that he whistle for the information.

Though her lack of cooperation was vexing, his features remained neutral, even as her own were caught in a limbo of indecision between lechery and ebullience. She made a show of tilting her head in order to make a second appraisal of his figure and he permitted her to do so, wondering what she could possibly discern simply by observing him. For his part, he was monitoring her movements from behind the dark lenses hiding his eyes and was aware that her guard had not faltered for even a moment.

A plethora of emotions had likely taken hold of her by now, ranging from relief at discovering another living human being, to suspicion of his motives. In truth, it was understandable that she would be apprehensive in his presence. Even if she were not intimidated by his sheer size, which he considered unlikely, he was an unknown individual in the midst of a conflict zone, carrying no weapons and with no identifying markings upon his person.

Eventually, however, she seemed to relent somewhat and spoke again.

"It's Shak," she informed him, still searching him for some sign of his allegiance, "who're you with? Do you work for the company?"

He smirked inwardly at that, noting with some amusement that she had attempted to sound casual when addressing the topic of the organisation currently playing the role of her hosts. It seemed almost that she had intended to bluff him into revealing his true identity, if he had indeed belonged to Umbrella, by playing to the possibility that she were an employee masquerading as a prisoner. He had already dismissed the likelihood of her utilising that particular strategy, but in this situation he saw no beneficial reason to be anything less than entirely honest.

"If you are referring to the Umbrella Corporation, then no," he replied smoothly, moving to stand at the bottom of the steps, where he was taller than her, even despite her elevation, "quite the contrary, in fact. I am what you would call a 'defector' from that particular organisation to a group who hold opposing interests."

"You mean like STARS?" she queried eagerly.

His previous good humour evaporated and the faint ripple of a frown passed across his expression, his teeth clenching for the briefest of moments. With some effort, he was able to restrain the emotional rebellion in favour of maintaining his neutrality, though her revelation had provoked considerable anger. It had tapped into yet unsettled grievances but he was aware that an uncontrolled outburst, aside from being entirely uncharacteristic, would not benefit him, other than to allow him a short-lived outlet for his frustrations. The fact remained that she had foolishly confirmed her loyalties.

She was a member of S.T.A.R.S, just as Chris Redfield was; just as he himself had been before his death and rebirth. And this was something that he could use to his advantage.

With slow, measured strides, he mounted the steps, seeming to grow before her as he did so, until he stood at his full, looming height on the stone terrace directly before her. There was an expression of awe on her face as she looked up at him, her gaze spanning the foot or more between their respective heights. She was evidently only just becoming aware of his true size.

"Indeed; there are similarities," he lied, intending to gain her compliance by insinuating his affiliation with her own group, "my subordinates and I are currently searching this installation for a woman named Alexia Ashford, whom we believe to be instrumental in Umbrella's continued dominance of Bio-Weapons manufacture. Have you any knowledge of this individual?"

"Nu uh, only been here a week," she told him, smile broadening as she mistakenly assumed that she was among friends, even as his jaw tightened imperceptibly with her answer, "wait, was it your guys who fucked this place up?"

"My unit was responsible, that is true," he confirmed, and she was clearly enamoured with what she was hearing, though he found her question to be crude in its delivery, "our purpose here is twofold, however. One of our number was apprehended during a recent expedition and we believe she is being held here, a young woman by the name of Miss Claire Redfield. Perhaps you have encountered her somewhere on this island during your escape; any assistance you could provide would be greatly appreciated, I can assure you. Her brother is most eager to be reunited with her."

Even before he had finished expanding his fictitious secondary mission into a platitudinous mockery of concern for his former subordinate's sibling, she had begun to shake her head. "Not seen anyone else alive since I escaped," she explained, her grin fading slightly as she spoke.

He imagined she was feeling some misguided sense of sympathy for any potential fatalities among the island's inmates, particularly if they were affiliated with a group that opposed Umbrella. In truth, the majority of Rockfort's incarcerated population were former employees who had become embroiled in industrial espionage, motivated by greed to sell company secrets to competitors. Indeed, several of Tricell's most avid contributors had been languishing in cells at the prison prior to the attack, and were most likely lying dead in those same confinements in the aftermath. There was no one of any true value on the island, save Lady Ashford, of course.

Irrespective of her emotional state, the fact remained that she had been unable to contribute any useful information to his cause. She was largely superfluous and a potential risk factor to the continuing mission, particularly if the true motivations of both himself and his group became known to her. For that reason, he felt it wise to eliminate her, lest she become an inconvenience at some future juncture.

His gloved right hand shot out to wrap around her throat, quicker than she was able to register. She gasped with surprise, jerking backwards as far as his solid grip would allow.

"Then your assistance is no longer required," he informed her flatly, sensing her knees buckle slightly as he continued to choke her and feeling a thrill of satisfaction at the power he was able to wield, even over someone as obviously capable as the young woman before him, "though not as gratifying as pursuing a personal vendetta or furthering the completion of my objectives, eliminating yet another member of STARS will be adequate restitution for this disappointing turn of events."

"Fuck off," she choked out, struggling against the fingers clamped vicelike on her neck, constricting her windpipe, spittle spraying from her lips as she spluttered out her objection.

She thrashed in his grip, gurgling obscenities, and hammered her boot into his crotch with the full force she was capable of mustering, before bringing the claws on her right hand around to transfix his wrist. Her eyes widened when his only response was a subtle sneer that non-verbally informed her that her struggle was futile. Rather than accept her fate, however, she swiped at his face, bladed fingers poised to impale his cheek. His head snapped out of her reach with ease, his free hand moving to encircle the forearm of the moving limb.

The grasp at her throat faltered and she spun backwards, tearing the knives from the thick muscle of his right arm even as the digits of the same appendage lost their stranglehold on her. Her body moved in a graceful twirl, talons cleaving the air as she turned to bring them around in a ferocious backhand, which he blocked neatly. Gripping each of her arms with his own, he wrenched them around so that they were locked at her back, her own weapons tickling and scraping against her spine to nullify the negligible threat that they posed.

Strong though she undoubtedly was, even her honed abilities were of little consequence when matched against his burgeoning enhancements.

"Thought you said you were like STARS!" she yelled out, tone almost accusatory, as though he had betrayed some unspoken pact between them by revealing that he was not, in fact, an ally. She turned her head as best she could to glare at him through one narrowed emerald orb, underlined by the track of scar tissue bisecting her cheek.

His teeth clenched once more and in an instant he had altered his grip on her body, relinquishing the hold on one of her hands in favour of gripping a fistful of her copper-coloured hair. He pulled her backwards, until her reverse was flush to his abdomen, and moved his head so that he could place his lips immediately beside her ear.

"I _despise_ STARS," he snarled, tugging sharply at the captured limb that yet remained in his grip and making her gasp aloud as he pushed it closer to its breaking point. Her glove was still braced against her back, the knives twisting slowly, threatening agony if she even attempted to struggle.

But attempt she did, kicking back with the sole of her boot into his groin yet again and throwing her head forward, clumps of ensnared, flame-hued thread tearing from her scalp as she thrashed. Her loose arm flailed, seeking purchase in his flesh, but failing to cleave anything other than air as she struck out blindly.

His response was to throw her aside, intending to give himself the advantage with her disequilibrium, the curt shove to her back and the reverse of her head sending her pitching from the palace's front porch. With an almost acrobatic grace, she corrected her awkward tumble in midair, transforming it into a smooth roll that brought her back to her feet, facing his direction. Her feet slipped easily back into their ready position, hands raised in defence.

Unfortunately for her, he was already bearing down on her with a speed that transformed him into a blur of distorted air before she had even managed to properly regain her footing. He thrust his palm forward in a blow that should have connected with her chest, knocking the wind out of her and sending her back to the ground, only for her to twist aside, avoiding the contact. She spun on her heel, raking his torso with her claws, and he was forced to suppress an instinctive grunt.

Though his pain threshold had been developed above and beyond that of an ordinary human being by his ordeal at the Arklay facility, the fact that he had failed to anticipate her reprisal alone was enough to provoke a momentary flush of anguish before his mental guard could be erected. He clenched his teeth to crush the threat of emotional rebellion, unwilling to allow even a second pass without absolute control. Catching her arm in his, linking with her as though they were partners in a formal dance, he kicked her feet out from under her.

She flipped up and landed hard on her back against the flagstones, the impact driving the wind out of her and leaving her unprotected as his boot slammed down on her chest. She let out a weak groan as the constriction forced her breath to catch yet further.

"Congratulations, my dear," he began, feeling that she had earned something in the way of recognition for her dogged insistence that she would remain alive, despite his efforts to alter that status, "you have proven yourself to be more of an inconvenience than I had first imagined possible, for a mere human."

He lifted his right hand, allowing her to watch as the flesh closed over the wounds in his wrist, the skin knitting together and the holes vanishing completely within a matter of seconds. His abilities were virgin, however, untested for the most part, and the regeneration was a trial in and amongst itself. Though he hid the extent of the toll it took, his breathing became laboured for a few scattered moments and a pulse of agony appeared behind his eyes. Her own jade orbs bulged in quiet disbelief and he delighted in her fear, that pleasure blotting out his discomfort.

"As you can plainly see, I am without such limitations," he said, having permitted her to bear witness to a demonstration of his newly acquired power, "your kind are no longer worthy of my prolonged attention and this momentary diversion grows only more tiresome with each passing moment."

"Get bent, thou fucker!" she retorted, her surprise at what she had seen subsiding in an instant.

His response was to grind his foot against her breastbone, looking on coldly as her bared teeth clamped together, forcing down the agony he was imparting. She brought her claws around to transfix his calf, the blades piercing the muscle at the reverse of his lower leg and slicing into the sinew. Maintaining control of his features despite the nascent pain of the new injury, he pressed the toe of his boot into her jaw, pushing her head backwards so that he could step on her throat.

As she began to choke, her second hand lashed out and stabbed into the side of his boot. The blades cleaved through the leather as easily as the material of his trousers and filled the inside of his footwear with his own blood. Anguish bloomed anew once more.

Despite her desperate struggle, he continued to apply pressure to her neck, watching as her features began to glow red with the onset of asphyxiation. Though he could feel the knives carving the flesh and fibre of his impaled limb acutely, he found it tolerable. On the other hand, she was soon to die, locked in her murderous embrace with the boot that was currently clamping down on her airways. The knowledge of his superiority brought a dark smile to his lips and he could not help but chuckle icily as he watched her writhe.

Before she could perish, however, the earpiece he was wearing gave a crackle of static, alerting him to an incoming transmission.

"Mister Wesker, we have a situation," one of his subordinates informed him, voice raised so that he could be heard over the all-pervading ambience of zombie movement and the rumble of distant flames.

"Report," he commanded, placing his right hand to the lace. His advanced hearing could already discern the unmistakable sound of gunfire in the background, suggesting that his followers were experiencing some setbacks in the completion of their mission.

"We've run into heavy resistance at the barracks; we can't spare any manpower to investigate the rest of the facility while we're pinned down here," the soldier stated bluntly, giving a concise and unembellished appraisal of the situation that he knew would be preferred by the group's leader.

The blond gave a quiet grunt of annoyance.

If Umbrella had indeed recruited Lady Ashford immediately after her awakening, either willingly or under duress, then they would be determined to ensure her safety. He knew that they would expend every asset to do so. But if that were not possible, they would sooner destroy both her and the virus than allow their competitors to obtain either. The window of opportunity open to them was narrow at best and it was imperative that she be located as soon as possible. With his assistance, the supposed stalemate would end in a matter of moments, providing they did not encounter any further stubborn employees. In the meantime, however, he would need someone to explore the remainder of the installation in search of his objective.

He suppressed a hiss as the sensation of his pinned adversary withdrawing her claws from his calf drew him out of his momentary reverie. Moving his hand from his earpiece, he glanced down at her to watch as the purple-tinted features of her face vanished behind the soulless black eye of her sidearm. Her thumb worked the hammer, finger tensed around the trigger as she whipped the weapon from its holster and aimed it into his features, movements no less dextrous for the cumbersome gloves she wore. Without allowing his surprise to register in his expression, he jerked to the side, the bullet humming past by a hair's breadth as he dodged.

His boot lifted from the young woman's neck as he stepped away, becoming a blur as he avoided the next two shots she fired with easy grace. Though he suspected that her marksmanship was in need of some considerable polish when at her best, she was entirely too distracted by the sudden influx of air to her lungs for her gunplay to be even partly effective. She was aiming with one hand, the other clutched around her abused windpipe, greedily sucking in oxygen, each breath unsteady but emphatic. As such, he was able to swiftly kick the pistol from her grip, sending it clattering across the flagstones.

She snatched at one of the other handguns beneath her arms, but before her fingers could close around it he grabbed her roughly by the throat and hauled her into the air. His strength allowed him to lift her weight with a minimal effort and he was aware that with a simple rotation of his wrist he could break her neck. But a thought stayed his hand, one that made him rethink his decision to eliminate her.

The female would make the perfect candidate for the search of the remainder of the installation. Though she was an unknown and untested factor, she was no doubt eager to escape the facility and would thus perform an exhaustive exploration. Resourcefulness and skill were certainly in her favour; however, he doubted that she posed a threat to Lady Ashford should they encounter one another. Considering those factors, he decided that she would best serve him alive for the indefinite future.

He dropped her, watching impassively as her knees betrayed her weight and she dropped onto her back, hand once again caressing her bruised throat.

"Hold your position; I will arrive shortly," he informed the soldier he was addressing, moving his hand to his earpiece so that he could hear the man's confirmation of his order, before twisting sharply and bringing his foot around to strike her full in the face.

He turned away, striding in the direction of the submarine elevator that would lead to the subterranean airport. He intended to take a direct route past the manmade lake that the underwater craft occupied rather than the winding road that usually led to his destination. Ordinarily, the route was impassable on foot, but he was no ordinary man.

"Fucking pussy," the redhead croaked behind him.

Pausing, he smirked slightly at the fact that her voice was still coming from the level of the ground, the upward curve in the line of his mouth tempered with a grim distaste at her poor manners. It amused him to think that she still believed herself capable of opposing him despite currently being unable to stand, as much as her disrespectful behaviour antagonised him.

"It seems you may be of some further use to me, my dear," he explained, before casually glancing back over his shoulder and fixing her with his hidden eyes, "so I will permit you to live, a little longer."

Taking in her prone form, he felt a faint pang of regret at having been unable to address his grievances with the organisation that she professed loyalty to. Though she would indeed be of some utility to his cause, the fact remained that she was a member of the very group he had once feigned loyalty to, an entire unit of which he had orchestrated the destruction of during the Arklay incident. She was a member of S.T.A.R.S.

Unable to suppress it, he felt his resentment well up within him, causing the inhuman glow in his irises that he had noticed at irregular junctures since his rebirth. Watching as she stared back at him, he saw disbelief register on her features once more as she saw the ruby pinpoints flash behind his sunglasses. Though she began to reach for one of the handguns beneath her arm, his decision was made and she posed no threat to him. Inclining his head towards her genially, he vaulted up and over the wall to his left in one smooth movement.

For the moment he would indeed permit her to live, but once she had outlived her usefulness, he would snuff her out, just as he had the others.

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----


	3. Episode Three: Broken Things

**Episode Three: Broken Things**

"Oops," Claire said sardonically.

The earthenware vase tumbled from her fingers and shattered against the floor, the plush carpet failing to protect its fragile form from the force of gravity. Amid the broken pieces lay the object she had been looking for, an intricate sculpture of an ant fabricated from silver and slivers of ruby. She stooped and closed her fingers around the item, smiling to herself as she lifted it up and inspected it for damage, comparing it to its sapphire-studded twin nestled in her other palm. It was undamaged, she was pleased to find, which put her one step closer to escaping Rockfort Island once and for all.

It hadn't been necessary to smash the vase. Quite the contrary, in fact, she could have easily slipped her hand inside to retrieve the model. But after all she had been through at the hands of the Ashford family's current master, she found breaking their priceless heirlooms to be quite therapeutic.

Slipping both statuettes into the sidepack fastened around her waist, she drew the semi-automatic from its holster on her hip, compulsively checking that it was ready to fire if she needed it. Moving to the door that would lead out of the chamber where the family's portraits were displayed, she checked her array of equipment, the weapons lashed to her harness, the ammunition stored in its pouches. Along with the two key items she had found, she was well-equipped to make her exit.

She paused at the door, free hand closed around the ornate, gilt handle, and looked back at the painting dominating the far end of the room. The impassive expression of Alexia Ashford stared back at her, cool azure orbs locking with darker, resolute facsimiles. It was similar in mood and composition, identical in every way, down to the strength and motion of the brushstrokes, to the picture that it had replaced, the image of her brother, Alfred. Even the subjects had been identical in their own way, differentiated only by their clothing and the length and style of their platinum blonde hair.

_The true master..._

She still didn't understand what it was that the butler's letter had been hinting at, but she didn't have time for the intrigue of the insane. Popping the catch, she walked out of the gallery and into the hallway outside, stepping over the ravaged corpse of one of the installation's trainees. The Tyrant virus had turned his skin a putrid grey and his blood to congealed slime, which now poured from the wound in his forehead, inflicted when she had put him down for good several hours earlier. The stink of corrupted flesh filled the hallway, but after walking through an installation brimming with the living dead, she didn't notice it so much anymore.

She hated zombies; ever since Raccoon City, she had always hated zombies.

Her reverie was shattered by the sound of gunfire. Judging by the direction and how muffled it was, she was fairly certain that it was coming from the front of the mansion she was now standing in. The noise meant survivors; the only problem was that it didn't definitely mean friends. Her first thought was Steve, a fellow prisoner and partner of sorts. She had left him with the body of his deceased father several hours previously and hadn't seen him since, but perhaps his grieving was done now and he was ready to rejoin her. If he was shooting then it was possible that he was in trouble.

But there was still the matter of the unknown group who had attacked the island. The soldier who had released her from her cell, Rodrigo, had made mention of a Special Forces team, but she had yet to encounter anyone who matched that description other than in cadaver form. She didn't know who they could be, which meant that she had no way of guaranteeing that they would be friendly towards her. Given how their bombardment had decimated the prison, however, they didn't seem particularly concerned for the well-being of Umbrella's captives.

Of course, now that she had given him the haemostatic medicine that would hopefully save his life, there was a possibility it might even be her former jailor. And then there was also the chance that it might simply have been a surviving prisoner, guard or trainee, any of whom might have come bearing her less than good will.

A small part of her thought, or at least hoped against hope, that it might have been her brother. But then, she had sent word to him via Leon mere hours ago; it was too much to hope that he would have arrived already. She reminded herself that she couldn't assume he was coming to help her, or that he had even received her message. Independence, resourcefulness, strength and toughness in the face of adversity - these were the virtues that Chris had tried to impress upon her from a young age and he hadn't failed.

Gripping her handgun tightly, she moved swiftly along the passage and into the manse's expansive main hall, where the immense portrait of Alfred Ashford glared down at the building's entrance. She didn't like the picture, primarily because the antique rifle he was holding in it had been aimed at her head once too often in the last few hours. The fact that it had been defaced by the collapse of part of the ceiling brought her a degree of satisfaction, akin to what she had felt as the vase had smashed.

Skirting the wide chamber and cursing the tiled floor for how it made her footsteps echo, she was glad when she finally reached the thick, crimson band of carpet bridging the gap between the entrance and the receptionist's desk. She hurried up the stairs to the raised dais on which the elegantly carved mahogany doors were situated, but froze before her free hand could grip the handle. Slowly, she wrapped her fingers around it and gently lifted the catch, determined not to make any more noise than she could help. The gunfire had stopped some time ago, but she wanted to be certain of exactly what it was that she was approaching.

Pulling the entrance open so that there was little more than a sliver of the outside world revealed, she placed her eye to the gap and peered out. There was a figure sitting hunched on the steps that led up to the terrace at the front of the estate, its broad back turned to the portal she was standing behind. Long, red hair streaked with grime descended to just below its shoulders, suggesting that it was female, and the curves of its figure agreed. Claire eyed the armour that the person was wearing with a degree of suspicion, but reminded herself that she was wearing items that looked out of place for a prisoner too.

More pertinent than the equipment strapped to the woman's torso was the green jumpsuit underneath, which marked her out as an inmate. It was a positive sign, but not one that she was willing to put all of her faith in.

After ensuring that the new figure was alone and seemed to be moving in a way that wasn't zombie-like, she checked her weapon again and yanked open the door. The noise prompted the redhead to turn around, jade orbs looking out from battered and scarred features to take in the source of the disturbance.

The brunette frowned, watching the other female warily over the top of her sidearm. She didn't seem particularly concerned about the 9mm tracking her movements. Indeed, the fact that the Colt .45 in her hand remained lowered suggested that she was more than comfortable with the situation. The older woman turned back to what she had been doing, slotting a fresh magazine into the breach of her high-calibre pistol, before sliding it into the thigh holster hugging to her leg. Once she was finished, she pushed herself to her feet, advancing with a casual air, arms spread wide as though to demonstrate that she posed no threat.

Claire wasn't prepared to be placated, however, and stepped back, aiming directly into her face.

The long-healed wound on her cheek gave her an almost eternal smirk, or would have had she not already been grinning broadly. There was something about the expression that was beginning to make her uncomfortable and she had only been exposed to it for a few seconds. It was defective, almost as though the mind behind it was broken. Her emerald eyes were shimmering with mischief and there was a flush to her bruise-mottled flesh that suggested more than exertion. All told, she looked quite mad.

"Who are you?" the girl asked, finger tense on the trigger as she moved her other hand to the hilt of the knife lashed to her shoulder.

"What do we have here?" the redhead questioned in response, tilting her head and leering unpleasantly, "doesn't look like a prisoner; doesn't look like a guard; definitely doesn't look like a soldier. So what are you? Tourist?"

"Prisoner, and you didn't answer my question," the younger of the two snapped, stepping back a second time as her newfound acquaintance moved towards her again.

Though she was several inches taller than the stout barrel of a human being before her, she was also thinner by a factor of over a foot. She had never seen a man or woman so short yet so capable of being intimidating. The talons wriggling at the ends of her fingers certainly didn't help matters. Though she was doing her best to assert herself, it was taking all of her resolve simply to stop herself from breaking and running away; after all, this wasn't some monster she was facing.

Her foray through Umbrella's European Headquarters had brought her close to taking lives, but in every situation she had found some way around it, some way to preserve her innocence. Killing zombies was one thing, killing B.O.W's another, but both were free of guilt or moral backlash. Killing a human being, no matter how deranged, was unlike anything she had done before and, in her current situation, Claire wasn't certain she could handle the ramifications. Her mind screamed at her to just bolt, telling her that if it came down to a fight then she would lose. She would end up skewered on the other woman's claws because, when it came down to it, she wasn't capable of pulling the trigger.

"Nor I did," the copper-topped maniac conceded genially, "you know, you're not exactly dressed like a prisoner."

Despite herself, the brunette couldn't help but glance down at her attire. The blue jeans and black t-shirt were ordinary civilian casual clothes, save for the dirt and blood staining both, the contributions of her desperate bid for freedom thus far. Over her top was a sleeveless leather jacket, emblazoned on the front with tongues of flame that caressed the sides of her chest and with the stylised image of a warrior angel on the reverse.

In return for letting him stay at her student lodging after his dishonourable discharge from the U.S. Air Force, Chris had bought them matching jackets with his first paycheque from the police department. She had liked the original so much that she had tasked him with getting several of them for her, delighted with the quirky Valkyrie motifs he had designed. They were a throwback to his time with the flyboys, who painted their jets with similar figures, and she always appreciated the sentiments he conjured.

The momentary distraction was all that the redhead needed to lunge forward, closing the distance between them in an instant and wrapping her gloved hands around her wrists. Crying out in frustration and anger at herself, Claire tried to fight back but was quickly overpowered, disarmed and forced to the ground beneath her assailant's bulk.

"Okay, toots; start talking," the aggressor insisted, pushing her face into the brunette's, her musty breath washing over her smooth features and forcing her to suppress a grunt of disgust.

"My name's Claire Redfield; I was looking for my brother at an Umbrella facility in Europe when I was caught and transferred to this place," she blurted hurriedly, lying limply so that the individual keeping her pinned didn't think it was necessary to stop her from struggling, "look, I'm no danger to you and I'm not with the company. All I want to do is get off this island and..."

"Shut up!" the other prisoner barked, and her captive snapped her mouth shut immediately. She seemed to mull something over internally, the whole time keeping her iron grip around the more slender female's limbs, before she spoke again. "Do you, or do you not, work for Albert fucking Wesker?"

"_What?!_" she asked, completely dumbstruck by what had been said and unable to keep the incredulity or the anger out of her tone, "I don't know what the hell you're talking about, but I would _never_ work for _Wesker_! How do you even know about him?"

"Because he just kicked my fucking head in and _he_ said you were one of _his_ grunts. So one of you is lying, and my babies and me wanna find out which of you it is."

"He's _here_?" she spluttered incredulously, scarcely able to believe her ears, "how is that even possible? He's supposed to be dead!"

"He punches pretty fucking hard for a corpse," the unnamed woman asserted, the bruises on her face serving as evidence of that, "now are you gonna tell me what you _obviously_ know, or am I gonna have to get stabbity?"

"I told you; I was just looking for my brother, Chris," she insisted, "he was a STARS member assigned to the Raccoon Police Department for a big case a while back, but I lost touch with him about six months ago. He's been out of touch before, but it wasn't until three months ago that I went to Raccoon City to look for him. But the whole city was crawling with zombies when I got there; I barely got out alive. Chris's paper trail led to Europe; I was just following him. I don't know where he is or what Umbrella's master plan is, but they seem to think I do and that's the only reason I'm here."

The redhead paused, musing on the sudden influx of information, face scrunching with the effort as she did so. For her part, Claire was forced to simply lie still beneath her, unnerved by the blades poised next to her wrists. "So where does Captain Dye-Job of the Bufty Patrol come into this?" she asked eventually, which earned her nothing other than an askance look of confusion, "Wesker, toots; I'm talking about Wesker."

"He was the officer in charge of the investigation that Chris was working on," she answered quickly, "the Chief of Police told me that he was working for Umbrella, and that he'd been told to kill Chris and the rest of the STARS team he was part of during a mission two months before I arrived. But he failed and died in an explosion. Now do you understand why I'd never work with him? That bastard tried to kill my only family!"

"But if he died then how is he still alive?"

"You think I know? Why don't you ask _him_?"

The human barrel sniggered at that, before throwing her head back and laughing quite genuinely. "Nice one, toots," she acknowledged, the malice in her expression receding slightly to make way for a sudden burst of good humour, "okies, one last question; got any fags?"

"Fags?" the brunette asked, more confused by the unexpected change in the woman's emotions than by what she was asking.

"Cigarettes," she clarified, lifting one of her hands from where it was restraining the girl's wrist and miming a smoking motion in front of her lips with two of her claws.

"I don't smoke."

"Neither do I," she confided with a grin, releasing her other wrist and clambering to her feet, before lowering her hand in a goodwill gesture, "you better not be lying though."

"I'm not," Claire insisted, gripping the appendage that was offered to her and allowing herself to be jerked upright, the bulkier female lifting her with barely any effort, "but from what I know about Wesker, you'd be better off trusting me even if I was."

"Yeah, maybe," her newfound partner admitted, rubbing gingerly at the side of her face and the coloured mottling there, "I'm Shak, by the way. You said your brother was in STARS?"

"In Chicago, Illinois; he was a SWAT Sergeant there," she confirmed, which made the emerald orbs watching her bulge slightly, "why do you ask?"

"Oh, I was in STARS too," the redhead informed her, and that was her prompt to feel her own eyes grow wide, "up until a year ago at least. Now I'm Shakahnna Morgan; professional Mischief Maker and Gonad Thief. Doesn't pay much, but I love my work."

The heavy-set prisoner stooped to pick up the semi-automatic that she had shaken out of her hand and passed it back to her, smiling happily. The younger woman realised that, when her expression wasn't tainted by suspicion, she actually had a very pleasant smile, despite the poor state of her dental hygiene. There was an honest, unrestrained joy in her that put her somewhat at ease, though she reminded herself to keep her wits about her as her handgun was returned.

"Did something happen to you?" she asked warily, checking her weapon compulsively yet again, "a year ago; is that why you ended up here?"

"Pretty much," Shak replied nonchalantly, "so what's the plan? For getting out of here, I mean."

Claire rolled her eyes and wondered if everyone being held on Rockfort was prone to reticence. It had taken her hours to finally get to the bottom of Steve's particular brand of neuroses, although she was fairly certain that he hadn't told her everything yet. The idea of walking around an Umbrella prison complex with another person she found it difficult to trust completely wasn't exactly her idea of a good time, quite frankly. But then, it would always have been hard going and she was in no hurry to get rid of only the second semi-friendly face she had seen thus far.

Her introduction to Steve had been similarly tense, as she recalled.

"Well, first things first, there's a house at the top of the hill behind this mansion," she explained, electing not to reveal too much of her strategy for escape, just in case the woman was not all she appeared, "I get the feeling there's something important there, but first there's a puzzle to solve."

"Puzzles?" the redhead asked, a look of distaste appearing on her features, "blech! Can't we just blow it up, whatever it is?"

"I think we might bring the whole building down if we did," she responded, unsure of whether she was joking or not, but assuming from her tone of voice that the latter was the case, "but there's no point; I've got the items we need for the puzzle here, so once we solve it, we should have what we need to escape with any luck."

"Not really been the luckiest girl in the whole wide world tonight, if I'm being honest, toots," her partner said, "already lost a couple of my weapons. Hey, can you believe I lost a baton in a zombie's eye socket? Seriously, little fucker fell off a cliff with my nightstick stuck in its face, cheeky cunt."

"Luck has to change some time, right?" she stammered lamely, to which Shak nodded her agreement with enthusiasm, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she was deliberately changing the subject, "we should make our move now, while we still have a chance. With the Ashfords and Wesker running loose, I don't want to spend any more time than necessary in this God-forsaken nut house."

"Right you are," the other woman acknowledged, turning to skip towards the manse's wide front doors with a spring in her step that was deceptively gay, making her almost seem not quite as lethal as she undoubtedly was.

In truth, she was glad that the redhead had so eagerly agreed to go first. She had no desire to turn her back to someone who could quite easily turn her into a human shish kebab, despite the tentative trust that they seemed to have built up through their introduction. For whatever reason, her new companion didn't seem to have the same worries. Claire appreciated the faith she was being shown, if nothing else, but retained the grip on her pistol all the same.

She paused on the terrace for a few moments before following, waiting for the burning in her cheeks to subside. Despite how ridiculous it seemed in the current circumstances, the redhead's language had made her flush with embarrassment. She was annoyed at herself for not being able to keep such a reaction in check, determined not to show any form of weakness in front of a potential psychopath. But even Chris had been more reserved in his choice of swear words and he was hardly known for his tact, particularly in tense situations.

She felt it was best not to ask how her baton had ended up lodged in a zombie's eye socket, lest it turn out that she was actually serious.

She crossed the paved area at the front of the estate as the older female ahead of her pulled open the door and vanished into the entrance hall. Unfortunately, as she neared the open entrance, she jumped back with an involuntary scream when her newfound partner's scarred visage reappeared in front of her.

"Hey, toots," she asked, green eyes glowing with mischief as the brunette held her palm to her chest in an effort to steady her racing heart, "got any booze?"

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----

Steve didn't like where his relationship with Claire Redfield was going.

He had only known her for a few hours and already she had saved his life at least once. Of course, he had tried to make it up to her; his pride wouldn't let her be anything more than his equal, especially considering how hard he had worked to ensure his independence and self-reliance. But there was something she had done that he didn't think he stood a chance of ever repaying.

They had fallen and, in the confusion that followed, he had come face to face with the ghoul that had once been his father. Without her presence there to guide his hand, he would never have been able to fend off the creature, looking so much like one of the only two people he had ever really cared for as it did. In the end, he had shot the zombie dead and collapsed into a sobbing heap on the floor, telling her everything.

Or almost everything, at least.

The fact remained that, after his heartfelt confession, she had left him alone with his thoughts, still trying to find a way for them to escape the prison island where they had both been held. He hadn't realised it until after his grief had passed, but she had draped the corpse of his remaining family member in a tarp pulled from a nearby jeep so that he wouldn't be forced to look at it again. It was a small thing, probably hadn't taken much time or effort, but all the same it meant the world to him that someone whom he had really only just met would think to do something like that for him.

He had spent the last few minutes while he searched for her in the ruins of the dilapidated complex wondering what he could do so that he was no longer in her debt. He wasn't used to owing anything to anyone, let alone someone like her, someone he should have been protecting rather than the other way around. That said, he had really screwed up as far as that responsibility went, letting her wander off on her own while he mourned.

First things first, he would find her. Then he would thank her to show his appreciation and act as though it was no big deal. He needed to reassert his control of the situation and show her that her help, though appreciated, wasn't necessary.

He didn't want to start depending on her, especially not after what had happened with his father.

Finding Claire was going to be the hard part, however. He had searched just about every area of the island already and found no sign of her. She hadn't been in the training facility, though there were quite a few bodies that suggested she had been there at one point; he recognised her marksmanship, which made up for what it lacked in professionalism with lethality. It was the kind of shooting that came from experience, not from training, and judging from her self-possessed demeanour around the zombies, he guessed that she had an abundance of it.

He hadn't found her at the underground airport either, though he was pleased to find that the seaplane was still there and waiting, which meant that she likely hadn't already left. By that point, the prison was a no-go area. The metal staircase descending the sheer cliff between the buildings on the ridge and the bridge below had been torn down at some point, leaving the lower area inaccessible to anyone who didn't think they could fly. That suited him fine, having no strong desire to go back to the undead-ridden penitentiary. Even the stately mansion atop the hill seemed empty, though again there was evidence of her presence.

The only place left was the menacing form of the palace perched atop the island's highest peak. It was a beacon of foreboding steeped in shadow that seemed more like some nightmarish dungeon than the residence of a wealthy family. Still, if there was a chance that Claire was there then he would swallow down his apprehension and find her.

He just hoped it wouldn't take long.

His first glimpse of the gloomy edifice's lobby did little to quiet his unrest; it was a dismal, dimly lit room dominated by a decrepit staircase that spiralled off into the murk above. Bookcases laden with worn volumes of what appeared to be children's books, some of which were duplicates, stood beneath the winding flights and made him feel oddly unsettled. As far as he was aware, only Alfred Ashford lived in the building, a brilliant soldier and sound military tactician with a keen intellect, which made his choice of literature somewhat out of character.

But the décor made the transition from surreal to terrifying when he saw the bodies littering the ground. Three zombies lay in pools of rapidly congealing blood that spread from severed limbs and eviscerated torsos. In his time on the island, he had never seen anything quite as brutal as the methods used to eliminate the trio of undead, and he had been witness to a lot that night alone.

The marks on the bodies seemed like they had come from claws, almost as though a monster had attacked them, but there was a peculiar mixture of precision and excessive violence that didn't seem right for a mindless beast or a programmed B.O.W. Whatever had killed them had known instinctively which wounds were fatal, and which wounds weren't, to better prolong the fight out. It was as though it had used the corpses for play, before disposing of them once it had grown bored, which meant that it was either a person who fought like a creature or a creature that thought like a person.

Neither option seemed appealing and at that moment he didn't know who to be more concerned for, Claire or himself.

Ignoring the knot of fear that had tightened itself in his gut, he gripped the handles of the dual machine pistols that his fellow prisoner had found for him. They had served him well thus far and they would likely continue to do so for as long as he was trapped on Rockfort. He mounted the steps, climbing them one after another, forcing his breathing steady and his pace even as the urge to run began to creep up on him. There was no sense in making any more noise than necessary though, particularly if there was a new enemy lurking in the area.

When he reached the first landing and turned to approach the next, however, he froze in place, eyes widening as they took in what was hanging above.

"What the fuck is that?!" he cried out, unable to stop himself.

Looming in the darkness ahead of him, suspended from the ceiling on immense, wrought iron chains like some grisly chandelier, was an enormous effigy of a child, a malformed porcelain doll clad in ragged period Victorian dress. Its head alone was larger than his whole body, its entire form bristling with misplaced arms and legs that, though too small for it, were as big as his own limbs. He shuddered with revulsion, backing away until his reverse was flush to the wall, momentarily unable to do anything but breathe heavily after the sudden shock.

"Steve?!" a voice called from above by way of response.

The sound of his name chased away some of his momentary terror and, when he recognised the speaker, he managed to force it down completely.

"Claire?" he asked, glancing up at the balcony overlooking his position on the stairs and seeing what he was almost certain was his errant partner.

She waved, a smile playing across her slender features in the dim half-light and making him feel slightly self-conscious about his outburst. His cheeks began to burn as he climbed the steps towards her, but by the time he had reached the uppermost section of the entrance hall his embarrassment had, thankfully, subsided completely.

"I thought I heard you screaming," she greeted as he reached the upper level, almost causing him to flush all over again, though more from indignation than shame.

"Hey, it's not my fault that someone around here's got a real messed up idea of interior decorating," he responded defensively, aiming one of his weapons into its cracked face.

He grunted with disgust when he looked over at it and realised that it was staring at him with one huge glass eye, easily the size of his head. Its other socket was transfixed by yet another spindly porcelain appendage that seemed almost to be beckoning with its fragile, dust-smothered fingers. He averted his gaze, eager not to notice anything else about it.

"I'll let you in on a little secret," the brunette began, lifting a hand to the side of her face to partially frame the amused smirk that was currently dominating her expression, "it scared the hell out of me too the first time I saw it."

She winked at him, which strangely made him feel slightly better, though he had to wonder why she seemed so upbeat all of a sudden considering where they were and what they had both experienced.

"Are you high or something?" he asked her, shooting her an askance look that made her give a huff of feigned offence.

"Show a little gratitude," she chided, reaching into her side pack and withdrawing two intricately carved statuettes, one in blue and the other in a deep pink, "with any luck, you're looking at the woman who's one step away from getting you off this island once and for all."

"What are those things?" he queried, nodding at the two items she was showing him, reserving his enthusiasm for her assertions until something actually came from them.

"Hopefully, they're our ticket out of here, more or less," she explained, looking at her trophies one after another, before jerking her head in the direction of the door behind her, "they fit in the music boxes in the rooms back there. Putting them in should solve a puzzle and open up a secret door or something, and that should lead us to the final piece to give us access to the seaplane."

"Seriously?" he replied incredulously, watching as she slipped them back into her pack, "what the hell kind of games does that Ashford guy have you playing, anyway?"

"It doesn't make a lot of sense, I know, but you have to trust me; I've done this before and I know what I'm doing," she informed him, which just served to make him all the more confused.

She broke him from his bewilderment by turning and walking towards the entrance behind her, clearly intending to move ahead with their quest to escape. Seeing his opportunity to assert himself as her guardian, as he had wished to do originally, he darted forward, neatly intercepting her and blocking the portal with his athletic frame.

"What's the rush, Claire?" he asked her, "you've already led the way this far; time for me to show you why you can depend on me again, okay?"

"Go ahead," she conceded with a sly smirk, "I need to save the ammo anyway."

He frowned, having expected her to voice more of a complaint than that, but assumed that she must have simply been concerned about her supplies, as she had said. Behind her head, the doll loomed, giving him the shivers once again, and so he quickly turned to escort her to the next area.

Before his hand could close around the door's ornate handle, however, it was pulled open before him. A stout, bulky figure, with a woman's shape, emerged through the entryway, long, unruly red hair framing a cherubic face flushed with exhilaration. Two bright, vivacious green eyes glared out from behind the muck-streaked tresses, scrutinising him intensely. For his part, his own gaze took in her attire, her musculature, the bladed gloves covering her hands and the blood crusting the material of her clothing in a second. He knew instantly that this was the person responsible for the massacre downstairs.

"Wah!" the new arrival bellowed, leaping forward with her arms and legs outstretched in a star jump, a look of insane glee plastered across her scarred features as she flew at him.

Steve's response was to scream at a pitch that was altogether too high for his own liking and dart backwards, arm rising to bring his machine pistol to bear on the grinning monstrosity that had appeared. Before he could fire, his partner's hand laced around his wrist and pushed his aim away, forcing him to suppress the urge to pull the trigger.

"Steve, calm down! She's not going to hurt us," the dark-haired female insisted, maintaining her grip on both of his forearms until she could be certain that he was not going to shoot, "she's a friend; I met her outside the mansion and she's going to help."

"This your boyfriend, toots?" the beaming, blood-streaked butcher queried impishly, jerking her eyebrows up and down in what might have been one of the most lewd and suggestive gestures he had ever seen, "looks like a bit of a skinny-boy to me."

"Just a friend; he's a prisoner like you," she corrected, which made him feel somewhat frustrated, in a way that was deeply uncomfortable and that he didn't fully understand the reasons for.

He hadn't really thought of Claire romantically; they had hardly met under the best conditions to nurture that kind of relationship. They were survivors who had thus far occasionally relied upon one another, but their interaction had mostly been on the terse and largely unfriendly side, his outburst after his father's death, and her subsequent comfort, aside. In truth, he didn't really think of her as his type of woman; she was opinionated, headstrong and capable, which wasn't what he had expected girls to be like at all.

All the same, her dismissive, even forceful, denial of any kind of relationship between them made him feel more than a little dejected. She was starting to make him feel as though he needed something from her and he hated the sensation.

"More like a bodyguard, really," he added, pulling his hands out of her grasp and pointing his weapons back at the suspicious woman, determined that he would trust no one's judgement but his own when it came to someone's character, "and you are?"

"Gentlemen introduce themselves before ladies," she admonished, wagging a knife in a theatrical display of disapproval, before giving a shrug and letting her momentarily solemn expression be invaded by a customary grin, "but since you're not a gentleman and I'm _definitely_ not a lady, the name's Shak Morgan; I am the Castration Fairy, stealing away the testicles of all the bad little boys."

"Alright, Shak, so why are you here?"

"Can't you tell? I'm on a spa weekend. How about you, toots' boyfriend? Those are pretty nice clothes for someone from a shithole like this?"

He blanched. With Claire standing next to him, in her customised leather vest and jeans, he hadn't expected to be questioned about his attire. His cold weather jacket was common for prisoners during the encroaching winter. The t-shirt and camo-print trousers beneath, on the other hand, did seem out of place, particularly considering that she was wearing the jumpsuit most of the other inmates had been wearing. Still, it was not a question that he was unprepared to answer.

"I ripped my uniform climbing over one of the prison fences," he explained, "and having bare skin isn't a good idea when the zombies are coming after you. One bite or scratch and you turn into one of them, in case you didn't know. So I pulled some new clothes out of a locker and put them on. Shame I couldn't do anything about this tag."

He gripped the collar he had been fitted with, the proof, if it were needed, that he was indeed a captive of the corporation. The brunette was staring at him with a strange look in her eye, though he imagined she was probably just annoyed with herself for not having asked him about his clothing earlier. Of course, she seemed a little overdressed for prison in her own turn, which was probably why his garb hadn't earned any raised eyebrows from her.

For her part, the redhead simply continued to grin inanely.

"What do you think, toots?" she asked, shooting a questioning glance at the younger woman standing next to him, "should I trust him?"

"He's saved my life more than once tonight," Claire informed her, staring at her on-and-off partner of the past several hours with an appraising look in her eyes, "I don't think you've got any reason not to trust him. A little selfish, maybe, but he's not a bad guy."

"Gee, thanks, Claire," he muttered sardonically.

"Well, I guess that means I'll let you keep your knackers, but only because you get the seal of approval," the woman replied, and he got the impression that she may have only been half-joking, "and since we're all friends here, I'm gonna go and look for booze. Think they have any?"

"This _is_ a pretty big place with _very_ rich owners," the dark-haired female answered, "they should have a wine cellar somewhere."

"Yeah, but what I wanted to know was if they had any _booze_. Wine gets disqualified from that category for being pish."

"Maybe if you can find Alfred Ashford, you can ask him," Steve suggested.

"That's a great idea," Shak acknowledged happily.

Unlike his own tone, hers was completely free of sarcasm.

He was beginning to wonder if perhaps there was something more than a little wrong with her when she suddenly skipped past him and thundered across the landing, before hopping down the stairs. Each step shook the entire house, making the floor quake and the suspended doll sway gently on its chains. He watched her go with more than a little confusion clear on his features, before turning back to confront his partner, who was watching him, a sparkle of amusement in her eyes.

"What's funny?" he asked her, more than a little put out by how insane everything, and everyone, seemed to have gotten in his absence, "you knew she was going to come through that door, didn't you?"

"How would I have known that?" she questioned in response, feigning offence for the second time since they had reunited, "but I did figure you'd probably run into her and get knocked on your ass, yeah."

"I could have shot her," he pointed out, incredulity making the pitch of his voice rise, "she could have stuck me with one of those blades on her hands and killed me."

Claire gave a genuine laugh, the noise echoing through the hall, before she placed a hand to her mouth and flushed apologetically. "She's too good to let that happen," she eventually explained, "trust me. You saw what she did to the zombies downstairs, right?"

"Yeah, I saw, and I already knew it was her. Look, Claire; someone who can do things like that to another human being, even a zombie, is too dangerous and _crazy_ for us to trust. It was like she used them as toys, like she enjoyed herself..."

"You mean, like _you_ did with that monster in Alfred's playground?"

"That was different!"

"Why? Because you hadn't killed someone you genuinely cared about yet and it hadn't brought home how serious this situation really was? How do you know she hasn't already gone through that? Doesn't it occur to you that, if she _is_ crazy, she might be crazy for a reason?"

He fell silent, lifting his right hand and scratching at his head with the barrel of one of his weapons. "Why are you defending her like this?" he asked her.

"Because you're attacking her and she's not here to defend herself," she shot back sharply, "I'm not stupid, Steve. I haven't turned my back to her once so far, but she could have killed me a dozen times over already; she's clearly more experienced and better trained than I am. She's been nothing but pleasant since we met; in fact, I think she kind of likes me. Plus, if she's telling the truth, then she used to work for the same organisation as my brother. She's one of the good guys, Steve."

"How can you be that naïve?" he queried, completely unable to hide his disbelief at what she was saying, "you think it's as simple as 'good guys' and 'bad guys' here? What about the guy you said saved your life? He worked for Umbrella, didn't he?"

"I'm surprised at you," she told him, frowning as she gave him a sidelong glance, "I thought you'd have been the first to agree with me, considering what Umbrella did to your family."

He snorted derisively, turning on his heel and walking to the doorway where he had been ambushed by Shak mere moments ago. "You don't know anything about me," he informed her bluntly, before looking back at her over his shoulder, "maybe I'll tell you, but later. Let's just get the hell _off_ this island first."

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----


	4. Episode Four: Separation Anxiety

**Episode Four: Separation Anxiety**

Steve's conflict with Shakahnna had given Claire pause for thought. Admittedly, her own introduction to the redhead had been far from smooth, but once the wrinkles had been straightened out she had found the other woman to be pleasant enough. Of course, she hadn't been foolish enough to turn her back on the potential psychopath, but the fact remained that she felt the male's reaction had been a little strong.

She hadn't wanted to push him on the matter though. Now was not the time for a heart-to-heart and she reasoned that they could always clear the air later, once they had escaped. There was no way to know for certain, but she got the feeling that they were close to finally getting off the island where they had been imprisoned. As soon as they were free, he could tell her whatever he wanted; she'd be more than happy to listen when they were somewhere, anywhere, else.

That didn't stop her from musing, however. He had been all confidence and bravado upon their first meeting, despite his age and the circumstances. She wondered if maybe he had been trying to prove that he was capable, to her or to himself, it didn't really matter. His mood had taken a solemn turn after his father's death, as though he finally understood the gravity of their situation, and she hoped that he wasn't returning to his original pigheadedness.

Still, perhaps there was another reason for his negative reaction to the new arrival. It was possible that he simply wasn't comfortable around her, which she supposed she could understand. It also seemed plausible that he was simply angry at Claire for allowing him to be pounced on, but wouldn't address that with her directly for whatever reason. Then again, it might also have been that he had come to think of himself as her protector and disliked the idea of someone else fulfilling that role.

If the idea that she needed protecting after all she had been through wasn't insulting enough, that he thought he needed to vie for the opportunity was the icing on the cake.

She pushed the thought from her head as she picked up the third and final token, clasping it in her fingers and smiling to herself when she imagined her first breath of clean air. Admittedly, she didn't know how to fly a seaplane, but then, she didn't really have to. As long as they could get it started, they could simply use it as a boat to get away from the island. Even if they did figure out how to get it into the air, she didn't imagine it being too difficult to land given that anywhere with enough water would make a good runway.

She continued to smile with the elation of this latest luck as she hopped down from the large box she had been using to reach the top of the high shelf. Tucking her prize into her sidepack with its kin, she moved quickly to the ladder that led down from the secret study, surreally located above a playroom, complete with an ornate carousel. She suspected that no children had ever played there, however, which gave it an eerie, disturbing atmosphere. Part of her wondered if the Ashford twins used the room, despite being at least in their late twenties; it also wondered if they had taken to torturing anything bigger than insects since their childhood.

Once she had reached the floor of the merry-go-round, she wasted no time in scaling the second ladder that would lead her down into Alfred's bed chamber. However, she was surprised, though pleasantly so, to find that the trapdoor now led down into the adjacent room, belonging to Alexia, where Steve was waiting for her. She could see him standing idly beside the music box below as she clambered down toward him and shot him a grin as he looked up at her.

"Claire? What happened?" he asked her, watching as she descended, "I put that ant thing in the music box like you said, and then there was all this grinding and rumbling, and that hatch opened up. I was just about to climb up and look for you."

"Just the puzzles, like I told you, remember?" she explained, as she reached the bottom of the ladder, before patting the leather bag at her hip, "we hit pay-dirt."

He moved towards her as she neared the edge of the bed, lifting a hand as though he were offering his assistance. Nodding graciously, she hopped down onto the floor of her own accord, letting him follow her lead as she walked past him to the door. He was about to cut in front of her, but they were both stopped in their tracks by the sudden sound of stone grinding against stone behind them.

Claire felt her body prickle with a cold sweat and she spun on the spot, snatching her handgun from its thigh holster. She whipped the weapon around, sighting along the barrel at whatever had emerged, only to find herself aiming at the regal form of Alexia Ashford herself. Steve reacted a shade faster, bringing his machine pistols around in one smooth movement, only to freeze on the trigger when he saw the noblewoman standing behind them.

She wore a tailored dress of expensive lilac and violet silks and elbow-length white gloves that covered slender hands. Her platinum hair was combed back from her face on either side of her delicate features, smooth as perfectly sculpted porcelain and inset with two glowing sapphires. She looked identical to the girl that the brunette had seen in pictures and recordings from decades past, albeit much older and perhaps even more beautiful.

The other woman's striking features were not what caught her attention, however. The rifle slung on its strap about her shoulders and the polished, stainless steel service revolver in her right hand were much more worthy of her focus. Even as the secret door rotated back into position behind her, she appraised the two interlopers emotionlessly, the cold azure of her eyes only accentuating the chill in her gaze. Despite her lean frame, her grip on the weapon was unwavering, suggesting that she was stronger than she first appeared.

Claire realised, though it left a bitter taste in her mouth, that the female had managed to get the drop on both her and her partner, and that they lived only as a result of her whimsy. Mouth screwed into a thin frown, she lifted her arms over her head in a gesture of surrender, determined not to die in a lunatic's bedroom when they were so close to escaping. After a moment of hesitation, Steve did the same, evidently thinking that she had some kind of plan. Unfortunately, there was no plan to speak of, other than prolong the stalemate until she could find a way out of it.

"Claire Redfield, I presume," the blonde stated triumphantly, the barrel of her weapon moving between the two of them to leave them in no doubt that she had them trapped, "you have violated the sanctity of my chambers and I do not tolerate such trespass, particularly from lesser beings such as you. Stand by the bed, both of you, and do not test me; though you may doubt my martial prowess, you will find me more than a match for mere children."

"Why are all the women on this island trying to kill me?" Steve grumbled, which actually succeeded in making his partner smile slightly, before she was silenced by a hard glare from Alexia.

"Remember your station and speak only when addressed, boy; you will find that I severely punish such impropriety," she chastised, the gun in her hand promising a swift and brutal retribution if he dared forget his manners again, "now tell me, Miss Redfield; where is the other who was accompanying you?"

"I don't know who you're talking about," Claire insisted, reasoning that obstinacy was the only way to prolong their lives, "it's just the two of us here."

It was a desperate gambit, and one that almost certainly wouldn't work, but she desperately needed to buy herself some time. Unfortunately, she couldn't think of any way out of the predicament. It was true that, in her formalwear, Lady Ashford did not look much like a soldier, but she wasn't willing to bet her life, or that of her companion, on a prejudice. If she tried to break the confrontation and use her weapon then one of them would get shot; that was almost a certainty.

"You think me so guileless that I would believe such an obvious lie?" their opponent scoffed, as expected, "I have seen the truth. You have brought another invader with you into my home and I would know where she is so that I might purge her."

"I told you, there isn't anyone..." the dark-haired female began, only for her denial to be interrupted by the sound of rapid, sequential tremors growing louder and ever nearer. Alexia looked almost crestfallen.

"Cleeeair!" someone trilled elsewhere in the building, as the thundering footsteps continued to build in volume, until the ornate chandelier above began to sway slightly, "Cleeeair! Where are yooooooou?!"

The rumbling reached its crescendo and then the door exploded inwards, revealing the bright, beaming features of Shakahnna, scarlet with both exhaustion and delight. She thrust her right hand into the air in triumph, clutching a bottle of liquid the colour of the dawn sun in her clawed fingers. In her excitement, she completely ignored the presence of the noblewoman holding her newfound friends at gunpoint, and instead turned directly to the other young woman.

"Claire!" she yelled again ebulliently, as she brandished the alcohol she had scavenged in her direction, "I found some!"

In the blink of an eye, everything changed. There was a compressed explosion as the blonde's pistol went off. There was the sound of shattering glass as something was smashed into pieces by the bullet. And then the redhead let out an animal howl of anguish and rage.

"My booze!" she wailed, as the brunette finally realised what had happened and caught sight of the now-broken flask in her hand.

Before anyone else could react, the stout female hurled the devastated bottle across the room at Alexia, its jagged edge slicing into her shoulder. Her finger tightened on the trigger a second time, but the pain made her arm jerk upwards and caused her to blast a hole in the ceiling. She dropped the gun by reflex and, with her slender face creased in agony, she retreated through the secret doorway behind her.

"My brother will eradicate you _all_ like the vermin you are!" she snarled, barely able to maintain her emotionally aloof façade now that she had been wounded. And with that, she vanished into the next chamber.

"Shak, are you alright?" Claire asked her, staring transfixed at the lacerations on the base of her palm, carved by the spinning crystal shrapnel from the bottle's ruin.

"That fuck-shit-whore smashed my _booze_!" she howled in response.

"We should just... Hey!" Steve yelped, as he was interrupted by the other woman pushing past him, face set in a vicious snarl and eyes focused on the stone relief, "where the hell are _you_ going?"

"_Nobody_ smashes my booze, _especially_ not Umbrella scum," she asserted, before her face lost its aggressive cast and she grinned with more characteristic glee, "plus, she's gotta be worth fifty points on the league table."

The boy stared at her suspiciously, momentarily confused by her words, before a horrifying realisation seemed to dawn on him. "What?!" he exclaimed, "what do you mean, 'fifty points'? What 'league table'?"

Shakahnna made a derogatory noise, slipping her tongue between her teeth and lower lip to emphasise the fact that she thought her meaning had been fairly obvious. "The 'how many scum have you killed' league table, of course," she informed him, her frank answer stunning him into silence, "now less talkity and more stabbity; my fifty points is getting away!"

Grinning to herself, the stout prisoner practically leapt towards the secret door, leaving her two companions to share a pensive glance. Claire could feel her partner's silent "told you" hit her like a slap in the face, but there were more important matters at hand than verbal one-upmanship over the older female's rampant eccentricities. She couldn't kill another human being; she couldn't even imagine doing it, unless under exceptional circumstances. But the redhead may have been right to assume that it was the only way to deal with people like the Ashfords. Left unchecked, they would torment and murder more people than their B.O.W's ever would.

All the same, the delight she had taken in slaughtering the zombies didn't seem to be mitigated by the fact that Alexia was a living, breathing person, not simply some creature. She was a cruel woman from a historically immoral bloodline, but the dark-haired girl didn't want to see anyone suffer unduly. It would be enough that she was no longer a threat, she reasoned; there was no need to torture her as well.

Ignoring the frown on Steve's face, she turned and gave chase through the rotating concrete effigy that had been built into the wall. A trail of spattered blood upon the luxurious carpeting traced the blonde's flight, but no more than two steps into the room it vanished completely. Shakahnna was as confused as Claire, it seemed, and was pulling the clothing out of the intricately carved oak closet deeper in the room, her grin faltering as her search failed to produce the individual she was looking for. Her talons shredded the garments in her hands to colourful ribbons that were now littering the floor at her feet.

"Did she escape?" the last member of their group asked from behind her, as the door rotated shut behind him.

"Well, that's her dress there, so unless she's running around naked, she must still be in here somewhere," the redhead insisted, gesturing towards the blood-stained dress of indigo fabric strewn messily across the bed with her claws, "didn't she say she had a brother? How many points do you think he's worth?"

"Why would she take her dress off?" Steve asked, walking over to the bed and staring at the offending article as though it would explain the situation to him. Claire noticed that he was rapidly developing a habit of scratching at his head with the barrels of his machine pistols.

She shot a cursory glance around the room and paused, face creasing in a frown when she realised that something was amiss. "More importantly, why would she take her _hair_ off?" she asked, approaching the music box where she had placed the blue ant statue and lifting what appeared to be Alexia's beautiful mane of platinum tresses from its veneered surface, "this is a _wig_!"

She spun when she heard what sounded almost like an incoherent scream of rage from behind her and looked up just in time to see Alfred dropping from the canopy above the bed where Steve was standing. The butt of his rifle slammed down on the ornamental box as she dodged to the side, cracking the varnish over the wood as he brought it down with an impact that would have shattered her skull. He spun towards her, bringing the gun around, but she caught the barrel in her hands and forced it away. His response was to twist it, loosening her grip, and then kick her firmly in the stomach, sending her crashing backwards onto the floor.

Before Alfred could react to her fall, however, her partner lunged for him, only to receive a stiff blow to the underside of the chin with the rifle's wooden stock. Pressing his advantage, the furious nobleman struck him again, this time in the stomach, shunting him backwards into the bed post behind him. Now that she had the opportunity to look, Claire could see that he was no longer wearing the British Imperialist coat he had been sporting during their previous encounters. Instead, he was clad only in his uniform trousers and a blood-stained dress shirt that he had neglected to button. Something was streaked across his face, but there was too little time to recognise what.

As Steve fell away, Shakahnna appeared directly behind the rampaging blond, leering maliciously. It shouldn't have been possible for someone quite as short as her to loom, but she managed it with aplomb. Her opponent spun, jabbing his weapon at her, only for her to block it solidly with her forearm, before grabbing its extended barrel and pulling him forward so that she could head butt him in the face. His expression morphed from enraged to somewhere between offended and pained as he retreated from her, wrenching the weapon out of her grip and flailing his arms in a desperate attempt to escape.

At that point, the redhead started to bray with laughter, the confrontation completely forgotten, as she threw back her head and roared. Wondering exactly what had happened, Claire stared at Alfred, who had collapsed over a stool in front of the vanity table at the foot of the bed. It was then that she realised what was adhering to the man's face. Though it was now streaked and smudged through sweat and movement, he was wearing makeup; his eyes were ringed with mascara, his cheeks daubed with foundation, and his lips perfectly glossed. Despite the ravages of the past minute or so, the features staring back at her were unmistakable.

They were Alexia's.

She hadn't noticed his face during their tussle, only his voice and his clothing, unmistakably masculine. But with the sudden revelation of his dual identity, the discarded wig and dress, his sister's sudden disappearance, her apparent combat skill - all had a reason. As she clambered back to her feet, she noticed Steve at the corner of her eye, looking on with an expression of utter bewilderment that she imagined mirrored her own.

Alfred was cowering against the table to his back, his expression slack with incomprehension as he looked at them, before turning his head, confronting his reflection in the mirror. A strangled noise of horror bubbled up in his throat, his hand moving to trace the spoiled makeup plastered across his features. And then he spun, leaping past them all with eyes clamped shut and tears streaming down his face. He wailed as he ran, a hideous, baleful noise that set Claire's teeth on edge, until he was through the door and out into the passageway beyond.

Shakahnna was still laughing, using her hands to prop herself up on her knees, tears of her own rolling across her cheeks as she convulsed rhythmically with each spasmodic guffaw.

"You let him get away," Claire accused, though she was more annoyed at her own inability to stop the blond than the redhead's, "who knows what kind of trouble he's going to cause us now."

"I-I-I c-c-couldn't h-help it-t-t," she stammered, trying hard, but failing all the same, to force down her hysterics and moving her hands up to clutch at her throbbing ribcage, "it's j-j-just so f-f-funny."

She exploded with laughter again, before standing up straight and pointing her bladed finger skywards, chanting "Dirty Tranny Bastard" over and over at an obnoxious volume. The brunette suspected that Alfred could probably hear her, wherever he had fled to.

"What the hell just happened?" Steve asked her, yelling to be heard over the constant barrage of the other woman's mantra as he came to stand beside her.

"Alfred was posing as his sister, for some reason," she answered, glad when the third member of their group went back to simply hooting with amusement again, "I'm not really sure what was going on between the two of them, but I don't think Alexia ever really lived here after all. I think it was him all along, dressing like her, acting like her; people only ever saw 'her' from a distance, but even up close I didn't realise it was him. It wouldn't have been hard to confuse them."

"So, you're saying there never was an Alexia?" he questioned, scratching at his head compulsively yet again.

"There must have been an Alexia at some point, probably when they were children," she pointed out, doing her best to explain a situation that was so convoluted that she too had gotten lost in the details, "but wherever she is now, he obviously misses her a lot, or at least, enough to dress up like her and write himself letters. Maybe she died or maybe she just lives somewhere else and he couldn't move on, but for whatever reason, it's like he created another Alexia in his head, an imaginary her that he'd always keep with him. He seemed as shocked as us to find out that she wasn't real."

He stood for a moment, face creased with the effort of comprehension, before seeming to give up completely. "I don't understand any of this," he informed her, "you mean, he thinks he's his own _sister_? What the hell is wrong with these people?"

A siren blared, catching the trio off-guard. Claire felt her heartbeat quicken, a dose of adrenaline saturating her veins in an instinctive response to a noise she had heard once before, in the laboratory beneath Raccoon City. Umbrella was a corporation with a lot to hide and the only way to ensure that they were always legally untouchable was to erase all evidence linking them to their secrets. She knew more about their furtive activities, and their disposal methods, than most.

"Attention! Attention! All personnel, be advised: this installation's self-destruct system has been activated. Please report to the nearest emergency assembly point for evacuation. This sequence will conclude in - thirty - minutes."

Shakahnna's mirth died in an instant as the alert continued to sound, her head rising like an animal sensing danger, her claws twitching nervously to add to the effect.

"Don't like the sound of that," she asserted, shaking her head to confirm her words, "D.T.B, while hilarious, is still a dangerous nut job. We need to be getting out of here now, before we end up as... Dead. Find what you were looking for, toots?"

"Right here," Claire responded, patting her sidepack.

"In that case, ladies and gents," the redhead began, looking at her two partners with what the dark-haired female thought might actually have been something approaching fondness, "let's get the fuck out of here!"

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----

By the time they reached the seaplane, Shakahnna's face was already beginning to resemble something the shade of a tomato, and both Claire and Steve were dripping sweat. The female voice slowly counting down their imminent destruction had haunted them from the upper reaches of the Ashfords' insane palace, right down to the very bowels of the underground hangar. It was sweet relief when they finally reached the aircraft and found that the trio of metal talismans in the brunette's possession were enough to activate the platform elevator that led to it.

As soon as they were inside, Steve threw himself at the controls, letting Claire busy herself with securing the cockpit door and allowing their partner to catch her breath again. It took him a moment to scan the panel beside the pilot's chair, lit only by the cavernous hangar's floodlights, and find what he had been looking for. He snapped a row of switches to the 'on' position and smiled to himself with satisfaction when he heard the plane's electronics hum to life, complete with the overhead lighting.

"Okies, first question," Shak blurted breathlessly, as the shadows were banished away, revealing her glowing features, "does anyone know how to work this thing? 'Cause I only fly downwards myself."

"I can do it," he informed her, examining the console in greater detail now that it was more brightly lit, before aiming a finger through the window in front of him at the immense metal gantry suspended directly ahead of the aircraft, "but we aren't going anywhere until we move that bridge. You two wait for me here and I'll take care of it."

Turning on his heel, he jogged back to the opening they had entered through, only to find his path barred by Claire, who had abandoned her attempts to close it so that she could arrest his departure. The other female similarly tried to obstruct him by placing a hand on his shoulder, though this put him a little too close to her knives than he liked and so he shrugged her off.

"I know you're after the chivalry award tonight, Steve, but if you're the only one of us who can fly this thing then it doesn't make sense for you to go out there," the first woman pointed out, placing a hand to his chest and pushing him backwards to illustrate the point that she wasn't letting him go anywhere, "I'll go; I already know the layout of the area and I'm not as tired as you, Shak."

"Pish and nonsense, toots; not letting you go out there all by yourself. Besides, I wanna be saying goodbye to the old place before we go. It might be crawling with zombies and on fire, but you'd be amazed how charming even the worst shithole can be when you've spent a week tied to a chair."

"Shak, I..."

"Nu uh, no arguing. Didn't you hear the Umbrella Scum-Voice? We've only got twenty minutes left, which means less talking and more escaping. But if you really wanna help me out then you can gimme a loan of that grenade gun. Promise I'll maybe think about returning it when I get back. Unless it's got ammo left, in which case it's mine."

The dark-haired female hesitated, and Steve had no problem believing that it was because she genuinely wished to go herself, rather than because she didn't wish to part with her salvaged weaponry. After a moment of searching for the right words to mount an objection, she simply took the firearm from where it was hanging on its bandolier around her shoulders and passed it to the other woman. For her part, Shak took it as though she had been bequeathed a family heirloom, holding it with an almost tentative grip and beaming broadly the whole time.

"Thanks, toots," she acknowledged with a grin, lacing the belt around her ample torso, "much appreciated. Now I need a promise from you, toots' boyfriend. If I'm not back by the time that cunt says five minutes, I want you to go ahead and get the two of you guys out of here, okies?"

He could see the swell of objections rising in his partner's throat as the redhead spoke, but knew that she couldn't voice them. Unless they gave themselves enough time to become airborne, they would never beat the island's self-destruction, and her sacrifice would be for nothing. It was a cruel truth and they both just had to hope that it wouldn't be one that they had to face.

"You'd do that for us?" he asked her, somewhat suspicious of her motivations, given how much she had seemed to enjoy the murder and mayhem thus far.

"Don't go getting all bufty on me, son," she admonished playfully, turning to move to the door and pushing it open to reveal the elevator they had descended on, "besides, don't have time for it. Less than fifteen minutes left, member?"

With that, she hopped down onto the platform and the two of them watched as it ascended back to the level above. Steve felt an apprehension in letting her go. He still didn't trust her enough to put his life in her hands and now he was being forced to do just that. The only thing he could really do was hope that his gut instinct about her was wrong and that she didn't prove to be an abject liability.

Claire also seemed uneasy, but more for the other woman's plight than because she too was undecided about how dependable she was. In his opinion, the young woman had trusted Shak too readily, but only time would tell which one of them was correct. He only hoped that it didn't cost either or both of them dearly before they found out for sure.

"Steve; what if she doesn't make it back in time?"

"I don't think we're that lucky," he responded, with a sardonic smirk.

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----

"You have condemned our beautiful home to burn; such an impetuous action."

"Forgive me, Alexia; I was consumed with rage at their trespass and their inexcusable attack against you. I felt I could do nothing else to cleanse the stain that they had left upon this island. It was foolish of me. I can only beg for your mercy."

"If you truly seek absolution then you already have it, dear brother; fret no more and direct your focus to the matter at hand."

The tremors of the distant detonations reached him even as he - they - made their way through the corridors of the training facility. Gradually, the prison was demolishing itself and soon it would be the rest of the installation's turn to follow suit. Alfred had granted himself more than enough time to ensure his - their - escape. He would even be able to make certain that the savages who had so unpardonably assaulted his beloved queen met their end.

It was a pity that he would not get to inflict a true punishment on them, which justice and his family's offended honour would otherwise demand. Alas, the safety of his sister was of far greater importance, and so he would simply need to slake his thirst for retribution by ensuring that they would not see the dawn.

"Your resolve is strong and your dedication, unwavering," she whispered, as he - they - entered the abandoned control centre and he took his place at the terminal, where he would orchestrate their demise, "you serve me, and our line, as ably as ever."

"Until my dying breath," he asserted purposefully, accessing the surveillance grid and scanning the various images that appeared to him.

The one named Claire Redfield and her young suitor, the one who called himself her 'knight', but was naught but a pretender to such a title, had reached the subterranean airport already. However, though the path of their escape was clear, they were waiting with barely restrained agitation for something to happen. It did not take him long to understand the reason for their hesitation. The third member of their small band of troublemakers was currently occupying the cargo elevator that was used to transport deliveries of provisions from the lower levels to the training facility above.

Clearly as restless as her partners, she hopped from one foot to the other, waiting impatiently for the journey's end. Her gore-streaked features were pulled taut with consternation in the strobing crimson lighting that flashed and wavered across the compartment.

Alfred recognised her immediately as the one who had dared to raise a hand to his sister, and he felt the fury blossom within him anew.

"Despicable witch," he snarled, spittle slipping from between his clenched teeth and spattering across the grainy image before him, "allow me the pleasure of executing her for her crime, sister. Say the word, and I will hunt her like the animal she is."

"Calm yourself, brother," she murmured, laying a soothing hand upon his slender shoulder, the better to pacify his growing anger, "she is not worthy of your concern."

"But if I had not been there to protect you, to shield you from her attack..." he began, fervour driving him to slam a fist into the panel.

He felt her fingers fall from his arm and for a moment he worried that his retort had been unbefitting of a soldier of his station, that she would chastise him for his outburst. In that instant, he felt a strange sensation, as though he were alone in the control centre, as though he had always been alone. A memory surfaced of features that looked at once like his own and like those of his sister, a bizarre parody that stared back at him from a mirror. A thousand unspoken fears rose from the blackest recesses of his mind, seeping into his conscious thoughts.

But as quickly as the fears had come, she banished them with a gentle caress, an act of such generous benevolence that it birthed his faith in her anew.

"But you were, Alfred; and you acquitted yourself nobly in my eyes," she told him, her praise filling him with pride and renewed vigour, "we have soldiers in our charge, do we not? Utilise them, so that they may have their opportunity to perform for us, before this destruction claims them."

"They would be honoured to serve your cause, just as I am," he insisted, doing as she commanded.

He navigated the facility's complex electronic administration system with the bare minimum of effort, having perfected its use over the course of years as Commander. He was pleased to find that, despite the damage that had been done to the island, both by the bombardment and the continuing detonations, that it was still mostly intact.

Without a moment's hesitation, he quickly selected the menu for the nearby exercise yard, in which trainees had been pitted against various B.O.W's in open combat. Using that area, he would be able to have one of the cryogenically frozen monsters thawed in an instant and moved to the surface, where it would engage immediately with the fleeing woman. No ordinary creature would suffice, however. Something suitably terrifying, suitably capable of ensuring the redhead's destruction, would need to be utilised.

A mere moment's thought revealed the perfect candidate for the task. Rockfort had recently accepted delivery of a prototype Tyrant model from a facility on the South American mainland. The original humanoid weapons had been created to combat infantry units, while the T-103 archetypes were built with more sensitive missions in mind, rather than active battle. The latest innovation in their line had been designed to combat armour battalions, with skin dense enough to deflect most major munitions and spiked balls for hands, intended to rend metal asunder.

This beast would be the arbiter of his vengeance.

With but a few key presses, he unleashed the creature, watching as its ice-clad casket was whisked to the training area upon its conveyer beneath the earth. The coolant in which it had been immersed was vented as heated gas, thawed by the activation processes that would make it battle-ready. Tyrants were excellent soldiers because they could be programmed to recognise and attack specific targets. No such orders would be necessary on this occasion; the paths of the predator and its prey would cross, and the monster would act upon its innate compulsion to destroy.

Its cold prison rose from the depths, shedding frost in rivulets of warm water that cascaded across its surface from top to bottom. The steel capsule fractured across its seams, splitting open like a synthetic flower bursting into bloom. From its inner recesses, the Tyrant emerged, wreathed in a cloak of vapour that dissipated into the humid air. It walked the churned dirt of the yard, its immense feet sinking inches into the mud, forced down by its weight. But still it strode inexorably on, its towering form unfazed by the difficulties of terrain.

It reached the gates that would lead it to the passage connecting the prison, training facility and mansion, just as its quarry did the same, and Alfred watched with bated breath as it obliterated them. One surveillance camera in particular had been angled perfectly upon their battleground, as though he himself had placed it there specifically to enjoy the coming conflict. It allowed him an unprecedented view of the wretch's reaction to the behemoth as it appeared before her. The expression of horror that appeared upon her face was practically without equal, her already drawn features twisting into a mask of absolute terror. He even detected what he believed to be a flicker of recognition in her eyes.

It was truly a wondrous sight to behold, to see the woman who had attempted to do harm to his queen grasp the nature of her damnation so fully that, for a moment, she was frozen in her tracks.

The blond noble felt a thrill of sadistic anticipation at the thought of seeing the woman beaten to a bloody smear by their servant, and he sensed the same heady expectancy from Alexia. They were, admittedly, both of a thoroughly sadistic mindset. It was not uncommon for the twins to enjoy the ministrations of the facility's anatomist, a man who professed to being one of Umbrella's finer flesh smiths. They both delighted in his uncommon skill with the blade and the bludgeon. They praised his unique aptitude for drawing forth the agonised wails of his victims, which rose and fell with the cadence of a symphony with each new act of brutality.

Many were the times that he had reclined in comfort to watch the surgeon work his exquisite wonders. As a further mark of respect to him, there had been instances when he had given his sister over to his care, so that she too could delight in his abilities. Her rousing endorsements mirrored his own.

The Tyrant was a less complex creature. It did not enjoy cruelty; it did not enjoy at all, for emotion was beyond its limited scope. It simply was and did as its nature commanded. It destroyed, and it would destroy her.

The redhead let out an insane bellow and charged at the monster, bladed fingers twitching with bloodlust as she powered forward on stout, muscular legs. Before the beast could react to her attack, she slashed its torso, teeth bared in a manic snarl as her claws whipped back and forth across its midriff. And as quickly as her assault had begun, it ended, and she pitched into a roll as her opponent drew back its mammoth arm and slammed the spiked ball that formed its hand into the dirt. A geyser of mud erupted, but it was already aware that its opponent had not been defeated, and so immediately began to rise to its feet.

Alfred scoffed as he watched the female fumble with the weapon hanging from its strap around her shoulders, lifting the compact form of a grenade launcher into view. The titan's armoured skin would not succumb to such a paltry weapon, not when it had been engineered to withstand a cannon's blast. But still she persevered, lifting the firearm with a singularity of purpose and loosing a canister that burst upon its muscled chest. Flames exploded outwards, charring its impervious flesh and baking the mud to clay at its feet. But the attack had been futile and the creature strode onwards.

She was just as implacable as her foe, however, and returned to her weapon. Ejecting the spent shell from the breach, she replaced it with a second, selected from the bandolier that was still hanging from her shoulder. Sighting along its thick barrel, she pulled the trigger once again. The second capsule did not explode so much as simply ricochet dully from the Tyrant's rigid flesh and drop to the floor. No sooner had it done so than it began to expel a strange cloud of gas from openings along its length.

The pallid giant faltered as the sickly green mist enveloped it and in that instant the blond's good humour evaporated.

"No!" he snarled furiously, hammering his fist into the lectern for the second time.

The haze curled and drifted across the creature's body, its muscles bucking and convulsing within their sheaths of grey skin, the spasms involuntarily driving it to its knees. Its flesh began to harden and crack, withering into a brittle shell as its virus-treated epidermal layer began to suffer the ravages of what could only have been the prototype anti-B.O.W ordnance. Umbrella's feigned mission statement had always been to develop ways to control biological weapons; this was one of the few instances of that platitude having been put into practice.

It was now an unforgivable oversight, standing in the way of his revenge.

He watched with incredulity as the woman's grimace transformed into a grin of pure elation and he felt his hatred grow tenfold. She sauntered towards the monster, confidence in every step, recognising weakness in her enemy, and slowly slid a third bulky round into her weapon's barrel. It barked again, its payload erupting forth in a tight cluster of explosive pellets that burst upon its form. The fragile tissue split apart with each blast, dark, viscous blood pouring forth from gaping wounds upon its head, back, shoulders and front.

Drawing back her leg, she kicked it firmly in the underside of the jaw, the blow seeming to set her own foot throbbing, but also serving to smash apart the creature's impassive mask of a face. It began to rise again, but she had already reloaded her grenade launcher, throwing her head back to cackle wickedly as she unleashed yet another shell. This one ruptured wetly, as though it had been filled with water, but the speed with which the redhead leapt away from the splash told Alfred that it was nothing so mundane. Steam began to rise from its body as the liquid saturated its crumbling flesh, eroding skin, then muscle, until the Tyrant began to twitch, its movements hampered by the damage it had sustained.

It staggered, and a fifth capsule, this one a second scattering of miniature explosives, knocked it down, first onto its knees and then onto its face. Pressing her advantage, the woman lunged past her downed adversary and seized the gate that it had pulverised when it had first engaged her. She struggled with something, kicking and pulling at it with all her might, until finally it broke away in her hands. Holding her prize aloft triumphantly, Alfred saw that it was a wrought iron spike that she had liberated.

Though he could not begin to comprehend what wickedness she had in mind, she soon educated him, moving to stand over the fallen titan with her newfound spear in hand. She lifted it above her head, aiming its point directly at the skull of the monster. And then, wriggling her hips as though she were a cat preparing to pounce upon a particularly unlucky mouse, she drove the spike down through its cranium.

It twitched one last time and then fell eternally still.

"How dare you!" he bellowed, his cobalt orbs filled with fury, before they wavered, glancing down at another image that he had seen at the periphery of his vision. The camera overlooking the underground hangar showed the last of the island's contingent of seaplanes preparing to depart.

"It would appear that they are leaving without her, brother," Alexia observed coolly, seemingly unfazed by the woman's victory, before she continued and he, at last, understood, "she will die on this island, as we intended. Cast aside by her allies, she will feel the misery of true abandonment before she is claimed by the flames and the destruction. All, as we intended."

"Yes," he sneered maliciously, watching the flame-haired female flounder helplessly as her short-lived conquest came to its end, and she became aware of the hellish inferno gradually encircling her, "let her burn."

The alarms sounding out the island's destruction became more insistent, and suddenly he knew why the Redfield girl and her friend had departed without their comrade. A digital display at the bottom of the screen before him showed that there were less than five minutes remaining to make their escape from the condemned facility.

"We have lingered too long, Alfred," his sister informed him, her voice taut with disapproval that filled him with a deep sense of shame.

In doggedly pursuing his vengeance, he had almost neglected his duty to his queen and allowed harm to come to her. He felt suddenly worthless, but then, he had earned that worthlessness through his thoughtless actions. If he did not serve her well, then his life was without meaning; it had been that way since they were children.

"Forgive me," he implored, tears beading in his eyes as he leapt from the panel and snatched up his rifle, "I beg for your mercy once more."

"The knowledge of your failing is punishment enough," she said, keeping stride with him easily despite his hurried pace and her own regal sensibilities as they departed the control room, "be mindful that it does not happen again."

"Of course, Alexia; thank you, Alexia."

"Dry your eyes, brother; I know that you would allow no harm to befall me," she soothed, as they stepped into the elevator carriage, and his silent tears stopped immediately, relieved by her kindness, "tell me, what of the others that dared to oppose us? Will they be suitably chastened for their transgressions?"

"Against their will, they will be taken south, to our Antarctic stronghold. It is a precaution that each of the evacuation aircraft have been fitted with. There they will await our arrival, under guard by our loyal followers. Then, we may do with them as we see fit."

"You will make them suffer for me, I trust."

"Yes; that and more. Anything you ask, Alexia. Until my dying breath."

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----


	5. Episode Five: The Grudge

**Episode Five: The Grudge**

The investigation of Rockfort Island had revealed itself to be little more than a study in squandered resources. Aside from hearsay brought to his attention by his contacts, there had been no evidence that Lady Ashford was, indeed, present there, either awakened or otherwise. Instead, his operatives had learned that it had been her sibling who had sparked the rumours of her dwelling in the palace atop the highest peak. Their reports detailed the confrontation between the young Claire Redfield and her two companions, and someone who had at first appeared to be Alexia.

However, it had quickly been revealed that, during her fifteen year absence, Alfred Ashford had developed a predilection for attiring himself in his sister's clothing. This peculiarity had confused many, Wesker's agents included, and now the price for this oversight was being exacted in the inefficiency it caused. The evacuation of the facility was underway; a decommissioned submarine, which had been used as an elevator of sorts, was being prepared at that very moment. Regrettably, losses of both personnel and equipment during the initial suppression of the military trainees and other employees delayed their progress.

This vexed him greatly, nurturing the frustration growing behind his neutral façade.

It had been fortunate that the bombardment prior to landfall had caused damage to the triggering mechanism, as Alfred's impulsive actions had almost brought a premature end to the operation. Instead, the remainder of the H.C.F incursion team had sought shelter in the Military Training Facility, the last bastion of safety on the entire island. The rest of its surface had been transmuted into a wasteland of devastated rock, scorched coastline and pulverised vegetation.

While he supervised the preparations for their transfer, it was necessary for him to be aware of events at the location as they happened. He had commandeered the group of technicians assigned to their unit to reprogram the workstation in one of the subterranean airport's cavernous hangars. It now permitted him full access to the facility's subsystems, bypassing the control hub in the building above. The unit that had been dispatched to suppress the custodial team at the Antarctic facility had installed an electronic uplink to the surveillance grid there also.

He was now capable of observing both his former and present targets, while awaiting the completion of his subordinates' preparations in relative proximity. It was a convenient arrangement, however temporary.

Several hours previously, he had received word from the detachment stationed at the southern installation that Alfred was en route to their coordinates. The black-clad male was certain that the nobleman alone possessed the truth of his relative's actual location, making it vital to acquire him. Unfortunately, shortly after the landfall of the emergency aircraft from Rockfort at their destination in the frozen wastes, contact with the second unit had been lost altogether.

Compounding these other factors tenfold was the most recent revelation; Alexia Ashford had now awakened from her fifteen year slumber. Given time to consolidate her power, she would be all the more difficult to persuade that an alliance could be efficacious for her. Though he had no qualms with acquiring a sample of her virus through forceful means, it would be all the more expedient to ensure her willing cooperation.

"How unfortunate to see you awake, my lady," he muttered, studying the image of her that was being transmitted from the Antarctic base, "particularly when I find myself indisposed and unable to ensure you a more formal greeting to this world. Rest assured, however, that my hospitality will be forthcoming at the nearest available opportunity."

Like her sibling, she was possessed of flawless alabaster skin, prominent, well-formed bone structure and striking blue eyes. Seeing her now, he understood how his followers had been so easily fooled by her brother's eccentricities. Since her rebirth, she had clad herself in an elegant, full-length dress cut from mauve silk, replete with various adornments. She now sat, stroking the head of her brother, which was resting in her lap, cradling him in an embrace that was at once tender and austere. For his part, Alfred Ashford was now dead, or at least close to death, burnt holes punched through the breast of his antique regimental jacket, which was now soaked with his own blood.

Their respective resurrections could not have been so disparate. Wesker had been forged in the flames of the Arklay estate, his body destroyed and made anew in the raging inferno. She had been birthed from ice, given fifteen long years to cultivate her strength within her cold sarcophagus. In their breeding, in their power, in their superiority, however, they were the same, though she was a proud woman from a proud family and he was certain that she would never readily admit it. Perhaps, with enough time to educate her in their similarities, she would come to appreciate him as an equal.

Indeed, he was eager to test himself against a potentially worthy rival at last.

Movement in one of the other displays drew his attention away from Alexia and her subdued mourning. There, in the control centre of the Military Training Facility above, illuminated by the glow from the vast screens that broadcast the same feeds he too was observing, was Chris Redfield. His former subordinate was standing with an expression of blank incomprehension on his features as he watched the monitor depicting the noblewoman and her late sibling.

"Chris," he mused, thin lips curving slightly upwards in a bloodless smirk, a subtle amusement taken at the fact that the other man had, at last, made his appearance, just as he had predicted, "I am afraid you have arrived rather too belatedly to be of any assistance to your beloved sister."

His agents had theorised that Miss Redfield had departed via one of the emergency aircraft; a cursory examination of the surveillance network's recordings had verified that hypothesis. While he had hoped to ensure a familial reconciliation between them, with himself as arbiter, now that she was no longer a target of opportunity, Wesker had suspended his interest in her. All the same, it would surely have been discourteous not to ensure that her brother was entertained during his sojourn at the Rockfort facility.

He turned from the console, striding quickly towards a group of large, metal canisters that had been unloaded from his unit's landing vehicle. The purpose of the creatures contained within had been to supplement the island assault. Indeed, they had already resolved the stalemate at the barracks and reduced the facility's population to manageable levels, before the self-destruct had put an end to that concern once and for all. The dark-haired male had fared particularly well against the original design during the Arklay incident and he wondered if that success could be duplicated against the advanced model.

Removing the Personal Data Assistant, which acted as a control device, from his tactical vest's front pocket, he deftly punched in the code to activate the awakening protocol. He watched as the nearest capsule folded open, revealing the Hunter unit standing idly within. Another keyed command roused the Self-Propelled Supervisory Machine that was squatting on a crate nearby. The drone rose on its hover pads and hummed to life, cycling through its directives, its lights flashing as it stirred from its mechanical slumber, like a tiny, metal animal stretching into wakefulness. Tricell's technicians had performed admirably in duplicating the technology appropriated from their rivals, he noted.

"Though I am currently occupied with other concerns that require my attention, permit me to offer you a suitable substitute," he said, walking back to the terminal and placing his palms flat upon its surface, "I trust you will find them to be an engaging diversion, until we are finally capable of addressing our long-standing grievances at a more suitable juncture."

In the control centre above, his adversary began to tap vainly at the workstations there. Though Wesker found himself certain that Chris Redfield lacked basic computer literacy, access to the island's systems were blocked from any point that was not the hangar where he was currently standing. The men under his authority had excelled themselves in their ministrations.

He performed a cursory scan of the other monitors before him, noting the trail of dismembered corpses displayed in several of them with a subtle quirk of one thin, blond eyebrow. The damage was unlike that caused by any B.O.W he had thus far encountered; he struggled to recall any creature maiming with such a wanton, almost hedonistic, abandon. His fingers worked the keyboard rapidly, cycling through the various areas of the facility in search of the culprit, until, at last, he found the individual in question.

It was not one of Umbrella's virus-enhanced abominations, but rather the young woman he had come across many hours ago while searching for the errant Miss Redfield. The destruction imparted on the undead still roaming the halls of the training facility bordered on torture, but was in keeping with what he had witnessed from her previously. His experience of outbreak survivors was that they usually did not enjoy the necessary brutality of their situation; in that, she seemed quite unique.

"Still with us, my dear?" he asked the image, "how unexpected to see that you have endured the destruction wrought to this installation."

He paused for a moment, casting a glance over his shoulder at the capsules that were still waiting to be utilised.

"Your survival suggests that your talents may warrant further examination," he mused, removing the P.D.A for the second time and typing further orders, "naturally, a demonstration is in order. I do hope that you will not disappoint."

Replacing the handheld device from where he had retrieved it, he strode back through the hangar, the Hunter units and their synthetic minders departing to fulfil his orders in his wake.

The antechamber next door was abuzz with activity, his subordinates conveying what remained of their initial resources, whatever had been salvaged after the detonations, to the waiting submarine. Their leader was a broad-shouldered, giant of a man bearing the stripes of a Second Lieutenant, a patch on his chest identifying him as "D.L. Chapman". A thick growth of dark facial hair covered his chin, trimmed neatly at its edges, giving him a gruff but well-groomed aspect. The baseball cap perched upon his crown, the peak turned to the rear, conferred an air of nonchalance upon him. He watched the bustle of his colleagues impassively, occasionally barking orders to hurry their progress.

"I trust that your preparations are proceeding according to schedule," Wesker said, startling the other man with his approach.

Before his transformation, the H.C.F soldier would have towered over him; now, however, the height difference was more than six inches in his favour. The unit's commanding officer looked on with him with a combination of both apprehension and fearful respect, and not just because of his imposing physical stature. He had been the man to request assistance in breaking the stalemate at the barracks; that conflict had demonstrated to him firsthand the power that the blond could wield.

This was not a reaction that he was unfamiliar with from those that witnessed his capabilities. It was one that he had come to expect and, indeed, one that he found served him well.

Most within the Tricell Corporation still viewed Albert Wesker with something akin to suspicion. After all, he was a defector from an organisation whose interests he had served for in excess of two decades; this fact did not lend him to positive evaluations. However, knowing what he knew about his former employer and its chairman, he felt that a parting of the ways had been inevitable; therefore, so too were the prejudices that arose from it. The fact remained that, even if he had not yet captured the trust of his new organisation, he was still an invaluable resource, both for his depth of knowledge and unique viral enhancements.

It was for those reasons that he had been given a supervisory role in the Rockfort assault, attached to the team as a "Specialist Consultant" rather than a rank and file trooper. That much told him that he was currently considered an outsider with the potential to be of convenience to the group's proven disciples. He was not averse to playing the long game where it was necessary, however. In time, he would prove his loyalty to the company and then he would devise a method by which it might repay him for the services he had rendered.

"The gear-heads tell me they'll have the sub up and running in around an hour's time; not bad considering the thing's been out of active use, pretty much since this installation was built," the Lieutenant responded, once he had regained his composure, "we should be prepped and ready to leave around the same time they finish up."

"Indeed? Then perhaps a brief digression is in order to ensure that my time is most efficiently utilised."

"Sir?" the soldier asked, as he turned to walk away, his sights set on the door that would eventually lead him to the cargo elevator connecting their subterranean sanctuary to the surface.

"As you were, Lieutenant," he ordered briskly, continuing to depart, "I will rejoin you shortly."

That his senses had been vastly improved by his rebirth was patently obvious, simply by the new levels of detail in which he now perceived the world. However, they had yet to be subjected to experimentation in the same, exhaustive manner as his other enhanced abilities. A hunt against highly-trained soldiers, using only those gifts that the virus had bestowed upon him, would be the ideal situation in which to determine the true limits of their usefulness.

Chris Redfield and the woman, whom he had learned to be named Shakahnna from the prison's register, had unwittingly provided him with the perfect subjects for such an assessment.

Smiling inwardly, in a way that never touched the neutral line of his lips, he left the soldiers to their duties.

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----

Rockfort Island was a death trap. Crumbling ceilings and walls made the going tough and dangerous, and the place was crawling with zombies, who stank to high heaven and kept him eternally on his toes. He was outnumbered, poorly equipped and one shaky floorboard away from a steep drop and a sharp stop. All told, Chris was beginning to feel like he was finally in his element for the first time since Arklay.

The intervening months had been filled with keeping his head down and waiting for the opportune moment, doing more political manoeuvring than physical. He hadn't enjoyed one moment of it; at least when the Umbrella agents had hit his safe house it had given him something to do, even with his misgivings about taking another human life. Now, with his Glock strapped to his thigh, with a shotgun clasped in his hands, with his blood up and his adrenaline pumping, it finally felt as though he were doing something important.

The only downside to his current situation, save the constant threat of impending death, was the fact that his sister had already escaped. Considering that he'd come all that way specifically to rescue her, he found the news more than a little frustrating.

Upon his arrival, he had encountered a man by the name of Rodrigo, most likely a guard of some kind, lying wounded in a tunnel near his entry point. He had claimed that Claire had evacuated when the island had self-destructed several hours ago and that he himself had played a part, however small, in ensuring her freedom. Unfortunately, their meeting had been short-lived and his newfound ally had been eaten by a giant earthworm marauding through the caverns, though not before saving his life. After a gruelling battle, he had been spat out, half-melted, when he had killed it.

But even as he died, he had given up a final token, the lighter Chris had sent to his sister in a letter following the mansion incident. It at least seemed to confirm his story. He had been an Umbrella employee, but whatever his past crimes, the dark-haired male was willing to forgive them and proclaim him a hero, even if he had been forced to do so posthumously.

As he had pocketed the lighter, he had known that his mission had changed; he needed to find out where she had gone, get off the island and follow her.

It hadn't taken him long to get his bearings in the crumbling remains of the building above the caves, his soldier's instincts for survival taking immediate control. During his climb up the cliff face, a freak slip had sent his equipment bag tumbling into the pounding surf below, and his gear with it. However, he had quickly salvaged a pair of sub-machineguns and shotgun from the ruins, complete with a harness for the first and plenty of ammunition for both. In response, the island had thrown overgrown, poisonous spiders and packs of roving Hunters into the mix, to supplement the undead staggering about the hallways.

It was almost starting to feel like they'd stacked the odds against him, but whatever monsters Umbrella had in its arsenal, he wouldn't stop.

Of course, it was never that simple with the company. As far as he could tell from the schematics for the base, there was a hangar past a sealed blast door boasting several aircraft, a number of which he could pilot. Unfortunately, there was an emblem needed, shaped like a halberd. He hadn't found the item yet, but he had found several clues to its location, the latest of which was a key marked with the word "turntable". It was all very reminiscent of Arklay; the corporation definitely seemed to attract the kind of lunatics that liked to clutter their installations with kid's games.

In truth, he was starting to rue the loss of the block of plastic explosives he had brought; it would have made things much easier.

The Hunters and their peculiar mechanical supervisors still dogged his footsteps, but he hadn't run into any yet that had proven too tricky to beat. The lowest floor, where he had first encountered them, had a turntable, which was probably where he was supposed to go next. Much as he didn't like dancing to their tune, he didn't have an alternative. He had to find Claire.

He descended to the basement levels again, passing the staircase he had rigged with a piece of timber to replace the shotgun he was now carrying. Beyond was a refrigerated chamber stacked with upright stasis tubes, the entire room wreathed in a freezing mist that seemed to seep from everywhere at once. The cold sent gooseflesh prickling along the lengths of his muscular arms and turned his breath to white vapour. He assumed it was used to store the various bio-weapons produced by the labs nearby, probably fodder for the trainees.

Then again, maybe the trainees were the fodder.

Crossing the sterile space, he swept his shotgun across the reinforced metal facades of the containers, just in case any of their occupants chose that moment to wake up and join the party. He mounted the stairs at the far end, climbing quickly, legs pumping, lungs expelling fog. Unfortunately, he had not taken more than a half dozen steps across the upper level when a noise from behind him froze him in his tracks, his heart rising into his throat.

"Touching to see such concern for one's sibling," someone said, the tone almost cold enough to make the ambient temperature sink by a few more degrees.

His shock turned to anger almost immediately, even before he recognised the speaker, even before he swung around and brought his weapon to bear. Trained eyes took in the pale skin, the blond hair slicked back from slender, ageless features, the sunglasses eternally perched upon the bridge of a straight nose, in an instant. They, and the voice that went with them, belonged to a man whom he had seen die more than six months ago, impaled upon the unforgiving claws of a monster and then tossed aside like so much trash.

From beyond the grave, Albert Wesker, his one-time superior in S.T.A.R.S and the traitor responsible for the deaths of his team mates, had returned.

"Wesker?" Chris growled, a prickle of sweat rolling the length of his spine in spite of the climate, "still alive?"

The other man's only response was to offer a chilling chuckle, the sounds of his mirth seeming to almost drip from his mouth, thick and oppressive. He wore black combat clothing, complete with an equipment harness and tactical vest. A cruel smirk dominated the thin, bloodless line of his lips.

"Your resilience bears comment also, Chris," the other man responded casually, "your performance against the advanced Hunter designs was no less than impressive, as I would expect from one of my former subordinates."

"Go to hell!" he snapped, his blood suddenly flushing hot with rage as his memories were filled with the events of the mansion incident, of friends dead or dying, half a year previously, "you were never our leader; you were always just Umbrella's bitch."

He sneered then, a dozen ivory tombstones showing from behind his slender lips. "I must confess that it is gratifying to have this opportunity to renew old acquaintances, and reconcile old grievances," he replied, his voice taking on a more threatening tone, a hint of danger appearing in his words like a drop of venom, "most fortunate, don't you think, that your beloved sister should happen to be here, of all places, when my organisation laid waste to this installation?"

"So it was _you_ who attacked the island?" the dark-haired male shot back angrily, finger tensing on the trigger of his weapon, "and my sister!"

Before he could fire, before he could blast his enemy back into the oblivion that he had crawled out from, there was a boom of rushing air and then he was hurtling backwards. He flew through the cold mist, limbs trailing limply in his wake, weapon torn from his grip by the sudden inertia. His back slammed hard against the wall behind him, pain shooting through every inch of his body as he slumped to the floor.

No sooner had he crumpled to the frigid steel below than he felt the stab in his midriff where he had been struck, the blow so powerful it had thrown him across the room like a rag doll. His fingers clutched at the area below his chest, gasping for breath as the anguish seized him in a vice that squeezed the air out of his lungs. He looked up, saw Wesker straightening from the lunge that had closed the distance between them in the blink of an eye, adjusting his sunglasses with a perfunctory nudge.

He could only stare as the fair-haired male fixed him with a predatory glare, before rushing forward, his speed so great that he could barely register it. One large, gloved hand seized him around the throat and then Chris felt himself rising, his entire body dragged from the ground and into the air. It was the first time he could remember ever being lifted in such a way, and the immense strength it required was terrifying to experience.

The grip around his neck tightened and he began to choke, hanging from the noose of a devil's fingers.

"Your sister was of no concern to me, Chris," the creature in human skin informed him, as he began to kick and struggle against the arm holding him aloft, back to the wall and suffocating slowly, "I came for Alexia Ashford. Her project offers boundless potential in the field of T-virus research and there are many organisations interested in procuring it. I certainly hope that you were not naïve enough to believe that Umbrella were the only company with such ambitions. Before I take my leave, however, I thought it would be prudent to bring a more permanent conclusion to our brief, but eventful, association."

He choked and gasped, flailing uselessly, a veil of red descending over his eyes and an unwelcome prickling sensation spreading through his body, death creeping over him slowly. His kicks began to grow weaker, his grip loosening on the muscular forearm holding him aloft.

"Perhaps I should spare you and reunite you with your sister in Lady Ashford's laboratory in the Antarctic," Wesker continued, drawing out the torment for as long as he could without damaging his no-doubt meticulous schedule, "I am sure that she would be most appreciative of two biologically-related subjects. I have waited to redress the imbalance between us ever since you impaired my ambitions for Arklay, but it may be more expedient to put aside vengeance in order to make a gesture of good will towards a future associate. I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that I would derive no satisfaction from seeing you suffer as you watch your dear sister become one of the monsters you so despise."

Chris thrashed at that, bucking furiously in the grip around his throat, swinging a brutal punch that smashed the sunglasses away from his opponent's face. The blond's head snapped away reflexively, before rising steadily, slowly, until their eyes were locked once again, and finally he could see what the beast had been hiding. His eyes were cat-like slits ringed with crimson and gold, mutated by whatever unnatural abomination had allowed him to survive being impaled and blown to pieces along with the rest of the mansion.

The evil that he had always worn inside, like a stain upon his soul, had begun to manifest on the outside, a fitting glimpse into the true nature of the charismatic, well-spoken Albert Wesker.

But it was more than simply the malformed orbs, shrouded by his ever-present shades. He was larger now, more imposing than he had ever been, with broader shoulders and taller stature. Admittedly, the younger man wasn't certain how much of the change was due to his one-time superior's transformation, and how much was due to his own altered perceptions. After what he had done, all of his lies, all of his betrayal, he could no longer hide the monster he truly was; Chris could see right through him.

His sight began to grow dim, his limbs heavy with the toll of oxygen deprivation, and then there was a bang that reverberated through his skull. For a moment, he wondered if he had heard the sound of his own spine breaking in the other man's grip. However, he simply turned his head casually, revealing to his victim the stout form of a redheaded woman standing to his rear, a high-calibre handgun aimed at him in one peculiarly-gloved hand.

"How good of you to join us, my dear," the black-clad male greeted pleasantly, before the younger male felt the hand around his neck brace.

He was tossed into the air yet again, momentarily weightless, before colliding roughly with the female who had gotten the drop on Wesker. His mass knocked her off her feet and sent them both crashing to the ground in a pile. He cursed, she cursed and their opponent let out a cold chuckle.

"It would appear that fortune favours me today," he mused, running the fingers of his right hand casually through his sandy hair in order to smooth down any slicked tresses that may have come loose, "perhaps together you may provide me with the challenge that you were unable to do so alone. There is only so much that can be expected, even of the very best, after all."

"Shut your pus, thou fucker," the redhead snapped, hopping back to her feet as he did the same.

His hand moved to his thigh and whipped loose the Glock he had holstered there, finally able to bring it to bear against his nemesis. He wasn't certain who the young woman was, but she had the look of a soldier about her and she clearly didn't like Wesker; that was good enough for him, for now at least.

"As you wish," he said, spreading his arms as though inviting them to make the first move, and then he become a blur in the air, twisting and contorting to evade their individual volleys as they opened fire.

Chris grunted to himself, unable to pick out even one part of the other man's form for anything longer than a few brief moments before he would jerk away again. He fired once for the head, watching as the monstrous eyes vanished in the next second. His aim moved to his opponent's midsection, but, though his sights had been set on his torso even as he pulled the trigger, the slug struck only air, before ricocheting from the wall behind.

He swore under his breath, frustration mounting with each miss. Marksmanship was his speciality, but the first rule was to check your target. He needed something to shoot at, anything, but no body part ever stayed in focus long enough. It almost seemed like he was moving faster than the bullets themselves. And with each rapid movement the blond was growing closer to them.

For her part, his newfound partner was shooting with gay abandon, seemingly uncaring as to whether she hit anything or not, but didn't seem to be faring much better than him.

Unfortunately, in the next moment Wesker reached him, snatching at his wrist to keep his handgun aimed away. Before he even had time to struggle, a twist of his captured arm sent him flipping over, his back bouncing stiffly on the frozen metal. The impact knocked the wind out of him, delaying his reaction long enough for his opponent to wrench back painfully on his grip around his weapon. His hand convulsed reflexively, the pistol falling from his limp fingers and clattering across the floor.

By this time, the redhead had realised that her gun was empty and lunged forward, slicing at the side of Wesker's face with her unusual gloves. The claws at the tip of each of her fingers flayed into his features, making him surrender his grip on Chris's limb and retreat a step. Left and right, she slashed at him, leaving thin slivers of crimson across his forearm as he moved to block her, his older wounds now weeping blood across the flawless skin of his face.

His retribution was swift. Catching her wrist in a solid hold, he favoured her with a slight tilt of his head, moments before he gave her arm a swift jerk and spun her head-over-heels. She slammed stiffly onto the floor, spacing her body to reduce the impact, only for him to drive a hard boot into her midriff, which she only half-blocked. Clutching at her ribs, she rolled away, unleashing a torrent of expletives as she did so.

From his knees, the dark-haired male opened up with another hail of metal, his Glock back in hand, even as the young woman hit the ground. In an instant, his enemy reacted, sliding casually back into his superhuman evasion routine that made every shot a miss. There was something horrifically unjust about the thought that someone like Wesker had managed to take control of such power, but it was simply one more sin that Umbrella had to answer for. And Chris would live to see them both pay.

Charging forward, he waylaid his target by discharging the rest of his magazine in a random spray, forcing the other man to focus on his dodging. The gap closed and then he barrelled into his enemy's stomach, driving his shoulder into his gut in a tackle. But the muscled abdomen he crashed into was solid and immovable, like he was wrestling with an immense Redwood. His legs faltered and his torso wailed its displeasure at the sudden, jarring impact as he came to an immediate halt.

The knee to the chest that followed blasted the wind out of his lungs, seconds before a hammer blow exploded across his spine, buckling his legs under him. With a sharp spin, Wesker whirled him around and threw him into the computer terminal beside the door he had previously tried to reach, now forgotten.

The blond offered him a sardonic shake of his head by way of compensation, but his self-satisfaction was short-lived, as the woman reappeared, leaping up onto his back. Latching her legs around his waist, she impaled the claws of her left hand to their hilt into his cheek, where they pushed out through the opposite side of his mouth and nose. Her right hand blades transfixed his ribcage from behind and then, just for good measure, her maw latched around his ear, gnawing at the side of his head.

Chris was momentarily taken aback by the ferocity of the attack, but quickly gathered himself. The shotgun, lying discarded on the ground, caught his eye. They were no match for Wesker in close combat. He was beating them to a pulp without even exerting himself; even the wounds she was inflicting barely seemed to be fazing him. But even if he could dodge a bullet from a handgun, he wouldn't be able to dodge a fat wad of buckshot centred on his chest. Even if it didn't kill him, it would hopefully at least slow him down enough to make the next shot take his head off.

Slipping the Glock back into its place on his leg, he dove, hands outstretched, for the lifeline resting on the frosted steel, wrapping his fingers around the length of his fallen weapon. He rolled to a stop, rising to one knee and spinning on his heel, bringing its reassuring weight to bear just as their adversary shook loose the burden clinging to his neck. The female went straight up, slamming back-first into the ceiling, before falling into a crouch directly behind the blond, even as his index digit tensed on the trigger.

But Wesker disappeared, leaving only the redhead in his sights.

"Fucker!" she yelled, diving out of the way moments before the shotgun let out its cacophonous bark and a burst of lead pellets shredded the air.

Fortunately, the volley missed its unintended mark entirely, instead fracturing the face of one of the glass containers. Cold, white mist began to drift from the rupture.

He spun, searching for his enemy, only for him to loom up in front of him suddenly, grasping the shotgun by its barrel in an iron grip and thrusting a palm into his chest. The blow knocked him onto his back, but his hand snatched instinctively for his sidearm again. Even as he brought it up, he saw the other man tense, preparing to evade, but the weapon snapped empty, the Dead Man's Click. A sly smirk spread across the blond's torn features, but it evaporated immediately as Chris reached for a pocket on his vest. He stepped forward, almost casual, but still with alarming speed, to kick the gun from his hands, the force of the boot bruising both his palms.

The girl charged past overhead, trailing blood in her wake from her array of claws, which almost seemed to twitch with a life of their own as she once again tried to embed them in their opponent's flesh. He parried her first swipe with his hand, his fingers easily deflecting the blades where a normal man would have lost the majority of them. Denied but undeterred, she lunged in once again, only for his hand to latch around her throat and lift her into the air. Letting out a strangled croak, which sounded almost like another expletive, she kicked him firmly in the crotch and tried desperately to stab him in the eyes.

Even as the former S.T.A.R.S member struggled back to his feet, desperate to assist, his attention was distracted when someone, other than the three of them, began to talk. Wesker seemed equally taken aback.

At the far end of the room, a monitor hanging from brackets on the wall, which had before shown only static, now clearly showed a woman's face. Her features were austere and slender, platinum blonde hair pinned back from her pale features, piercing blue eyes glaring into the camera that was focused upon her. He had a recollection of an image upon a huge computer screen from earlier during his mission, of a woman cradling the body of a dead man who could easily have been her twin brother.

"Reveal yourself, puppet master," she commanded, and he had no difficulty imagining that she was speaking directly to the black-clad male himself, "these playthings you have sent me are unworthy of a Queen. Come, kneel before me yourself, if you dare, and face my judgement."

There was a roaring noise, like flames bursting into life, and then a male voice from off-camera began to scream as though his flesh was being cooked from his bones. The image in the display distorted, the woman's expression obscured by the sudden warping of the lens, and then the transmission ended abruptly, returning to static.

"Alexia?!" he heard Wesker utter incredulously.

He looked back just as his enemy realised that the female still clutched in his hand had turned blue and had been trying to impale him through the face the entire time he had been distracted. With a casual flick of his wrist, the blond discarded her, throwing her backwards into a stasis tube with such force that it cracked beneath her weight. Before Chris could react, the other man spun on his heel and kicked him under the chin, knocking him back to the floor.

There was a blast of air as their opponent rushed out of the chamber, leaving them to nurse their wounds, though not for long. The dark-haired male groaned as clawed fingers the colour of pus and rot emerged from the hole his shotgun had accidentally created in one of the cryogenic freezers, and his partner limped quickly away from the machine she had collided with as something impacted against the fractured glass from inside. He snatched up the fallen shotgun, putting his back to hers and wincing slightly as his entire torso began to throb from the abuse it had taken.

"Chris Redfield," he said, turning his head slightly to look at the flame-haired female behind him, as she slapped a fresh clip into the Colt .45 she had been using against Wesker.

"Shak Morgan," she responded painfully, "man, Claire's gonna be so jealous when she finds out I found you first."

His heart leapt into his throat at that, and he was forced to suppress the urge to spin and confront her. "You met Claire?"

"Sorry to be a cock tease, but could we talk about your sister later?" she asked, a note of genuine consolation in her voice, as though she were actually apologising for the fact that he would have to wait.

"No problem," he assured her, racking the slide on his shotgun.

The creature in the casket before him let out a plaintive moan, an almost ape-like noise, primal and without cognition. Behind him, the redhead's own adversary roared, the noise so loud that it shook the chamber, its massive body ramming hard against the container's interior with the sound of fracturing glass. He hadn't seen monsters like these before, but what little he had seen didn't leave him impressed. They were nothing he couldn't handle and, though he didn't know the woman standing behind him, with her arsenal and her skills, she seemed more than ready.

The shattered front of the nearest cryogenic tube began to fall apart, sloughing from the holes his misfire had caused like ice in the thaw as the probing claws pushed through them. The occupant threw its body hard against the inside, shaking loose yet more debris, sparkling shards of crystal clattering against the steel. A face appeared at the hole, a deformed human skull, expression pulled into a tight grimace by its warped, rubbery flesh.

Chris responded by shooting it in the head, loosing a hail of buckshot that blew apart the container's façade and shredded the beast's features. It let out a howl of anguish, blood almost the colour of olives spraying from a dozen wounds in its malformed cranium and painting the inside of the glass.

An immense limb, corded with thick muscle and sheathed in hideously jaundiced skin, smashed apart the ruined frontage, swinging downwards in a vengeful strike. Eyes widening, he shoved the young woman behind him to the side quickly, before diving to the right, narrowly avoiding the bone-crushing blow, which left the metal floor warped. The beast stepped free of the capsule, a hulking abomination more than a foot taller than he was, one arm withered to uselessness, the other distended beyond all sense of proportion. Its heavy footsteps rocked the ground beneath them. Its skin bulged with swollen veins, parts of it throbbing repulsively.

Just like all of Umbrella's creations, it bore no resemblance to the human being it had been created from; it was nothing more than a monster now.

Shak rolled as she hit the floor, stopping on her back and lifting her high calibre handgun in two hands. She fired, using her position to brace herself as she unleashed a salvo of hot metal, a slug piercing the creature's chest and bursting from its reverse in an explosion of gore. Pushing himself to his feet, he lunged forward, dodging the flailing arm that whipped out to decapitate him. Its weight and its apparent decay made it sluggish, and it could not turn to confront him in time.

He pressed the shotgun against its spine and pulled the trigger, watching as its body convulsed violently, before falling limp upon the ground with a final, choked roar. Putrid blood began to pool around its decimated midsection.

"What the hell are these things anyway?" Chris asked her, reloading his weapon again as the monster twitched and lay still, its corpse cooling on the frozen steel.

"Bandersnatchers," she responded blithely, clambering back to her feet.

Almost as though it had heard itself announced, the second creature exploded from its capsule in a shower of razor shards. Her face brightened instantly, lips splitting to reveal a broad grin, and she charged forwards, blades wriggling at her fingers. Even before her opponent could orient itself, she lunged at it, slicing apart the tendons that worked the muscles of its overgrown arm. Then, with a flourish, she cleaved apart the flesh at the tops of its thighs, causing its legs to buckle beneath it and bringing it to its knees. Drawing back her gloved right hand, she drove her claws through its face as the finishing touch.

"Fucking pussy," she commented, kicking it off her talons and letting it collapse to the floor, its bloated upper limb trailing limply behind it like a streamer.

"Nice work," he acknowledged, looking over his new companion and the catalogue of injuries she seemed to have sustained with an expert eye, searching for any bite marks that may have been among them, "you okay?"

"Fuck yeah," she replied, grinning as she sat down heavily atop the maimed corpse, face flushing with a ruddiness that came from more than simple exercise, "the only thing that could make this better is a cigarette."

A thought occurred to him and he patted the front of his vest in search of a likely pocket, before stopping and reaching into the top pouch of his tactical vest. "Today's your lucky day," he said, withdrawing a battered cardboard packet and passing it to her, "I'm supposed to be giving up. Don't know what I was thinking when I grabbed them off the dresser; must have been force of habit. Keep 'em if you want."

The young woman let out a hoot of triumph and graciously accepted the offering, cupping it in her hands as though it were made of solid gold. "You are the fucking king," she informed him, slipping one of the white sticks into her mouth, rolling it back and forth between her lips as though savouring the familiar feel, "now all I need is a light."

Chris winced. Lighter's were a basic piece of kit; there was never any telling when one might come in handy. Unfortunately, he'd thrown his into the bag which he'd lost on the cliff side. Before he could tell her that, however, he remembered that he had another. The one he had been given by Rodrigo as he had died was still in his pocket, the very same one he had sent to his sister as a keepsake before he went underground. Reaching into the confines of his tactical vest yet again, he withdrew it and flipped open the cap, extending the flame towards her.

"It must be love," she gushed, leaning forward to let the fire ignite her cigarette and taking an agonisingly deep puff from it, her eyes rolling back as she did so, before breathing out with a groan of sweet release that made him want to ask for the packet back, "not my brand, but who gives a fuck? There's got to be something I can do for you; I mean, not sex, obviously, but something."

"Yeah," he replied, "you were going to tell me about my sister."

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----


	6. Episode Six: Great White

**Episode Six: Great White**

The underground reservoir was an immense natural cavern, hollowed out by human hands into a basin that contained the purified water supply of the entire Rockfort facility. The roar of rushing torrents, which burst forth from outlet pipes lining the carved stone walls and plunged into the lake below, filled the air, echoing in the vast chamber. A fine spray hung in the atmosphere, drenching Chris's clothes and causing his hair to hang sodden against his forehead. He wiped the grimy sheen of diluted sweat, dirt and blood from his face irritably, lowering his flashlight and scanning the new environment.

The passage they had followed to get there had been almost pitch black from beginning to end, save a few sections that had collapsed, either due to the bombardment or the self-destruct. In contrast, this place was practically glowing with illumination. A hole in the roof showed a patch of the burning sky above the Training Facility, plumes of smoke reflecting the inferno that was gradually consuming the remainder of the island. He had seen it from ground level and it had momentarily taken his breath away, but he hadn't been there to sightsee, just to rescue his sister.

Now he was thankful for it; the light from the smouldering heavens shone down into the dark depths of the subterranean river, painting the dull grey of stone and concrete a shimmering bronze. Waves of copper-tinted light, mirroring from the undulating surface of the water below, flowed across the walls. It would make finding the emblem, and the halberd key embedded in it, that much easier.

"This the place?" Shak asked him, her grungy tresses limp around her face, which was still cheerful in spite of the fact that she was soaked.

"Yeah, I think so," he said, sweeping the beam of his flashlight over the surface of the channel that was rushing along beneath the metal bridge they were standing on. The object had looked heavy, which meant that it was unlikely to have travelled far, even in a current as rapid as the one below.

Sure enough, as he continued to search the area under the aperture in the ceiling, which the shield-shaped insignia had fallen through, his torch picked out a shadow beneath the surface. From his vantage point, it certainly looked like it could have been the crest.

"There; see it?" he asked, aiming a finger down into the darkness.

"Not really."

She took a step back from the rail, reaching into several of her pockets one after the other and withdrawing various items that he couldn't readily identify in the gloom. She snapped a glow stick into life, the tube shining a gentle shade of blue. He noticed that she had tied it with a piece of thin cord to what looked like a rock about the size of a fist; why she had been carrying the rock and the cord, he didn't know. He wasn't going to complain if it helped them find the emblem, however.

She tossed the weight into the water and they watched as it sank, dragging the beacon with it. It twisted in the flow, buffeted by the current, but eventually came to rest on the bottom. There, shining in the corona of eerie azure light, was the shield, complete with its halberd-shaped embellishment.

"Nice work. Any ideas on how we get it out of there?"

"Oh yeah," the redhead confirmed from somewhere behind him, moments before there was a loud rattle and a series of clunks.

He turned, watching as she shrugged off her flak jacket and laid it over the pile of her equipment that was resting on the floor, as a shield against the moisture in the air. She had produced a hair band from somewhere on her person, and proceeded to slip her copper mane into a simple ponytail at the back of her head. It didn't take a genius to figure out what she was planning.

"Don't suppose there's any way I can talk you out of this?" he asked her.

"Nah, I'm good to go already, look," she said, spreading her arms to show that she was newly unencumbered, "besides I'll be much better at this than you; I'm a water-baby. I always wanted to be a mermaid when I grew up. Now stand here and look pretty, and keep an eye on my stuff, please."

He nodded, but couldn't shake the memories of huge shadows in the depths, of gaping maws filled with teeth, of sleek shapes powering through the water. If this was anything like Arklay then the canal was an accident waiting to happen, a death-trap. Despite that, he didn't particularly want to be the one standing on the sidelines. But so long as one of them got the key, it didn't matter which.

She strode over to the rail and ducked the metal bar, turning back to shoot him a playful wink, before hopping neatly into the waterway with an almighty splash. He watched from the bridge as her shadow moved beneath the surface, before bursting back up through the spray, her head tossing this way and that as she oriented herself. Rotating in the water, she looked up at him, her limbs working furiously to maintain her position, before turning back and letting the flow drag her in the direction of the blue aura. Once she was over it, she tipped upside down with a wriggle of her legs and dived down to grab the emblem.

That was the moment when something huge and black passed beneath Chris's position, swimming straight towards her. He had another memory of blood, Richard's blood, filling the water, as something immense snatched him up in its jaws and carried him down into the darkness.

"Son of a bitch!" he yelled, tracking its movements with his Glock and realising that his bullets were probably going to be useless, even without the poor visibility. They flew fine through air but water was another matter entirely.

Grunting his frustration, he turned and ran to the concrete bank of the stream that followed its downhill course towards the artificial lake at the reservoir's bottom. A sheer slope led down to the level below, its surface wet and devoid of traction, but he sprinted along it all the same, almost losing his footing more than once before he reached the next tier. Even as he watched, the glow beneath the surging tide vanished, the shadow eclipsing it and his view of the young woman. There was a flat, pulsing noise and the air seemed to prickle; the hair on his forearms stood on end.

"Shak?!" he called out, standing at the edge and searching for any sign of her near where the insignia had been.

He heard a cry and saw her emerge from the water further along. The creature had shunted her down to the next level and, in an instant, he was racing to join her. His feet skidded out from under him as he traversed the second decline, and he dropped onto his back, sliding to the bottom painfully before forcing himself up. She was clinging to the edge of the canal, hair plastered to her face, spluttering as she tried to fight her way onto the shore.

He stood over her and reached for her hand, but when he took it something made his entire body convulse and his fingers slipped. He withdrew his arm, letting out a yell; it felt like every part of him had been pounded with a sledgehammer at once.

After a couple of seconds, Shakahnna reappeared, arms straining to drag herself back onto dry land. He moved to pick her up again, but she looked up at him with features pinched in a glare.

"I'll do it; just get out my way," she insisted hotly, pressing her weight up on thick biceps and rolling into a pained heap at his feet.

"What the hell just happened?" he asked her, "did we just get electrocuted?"

"Fucking felt like it," she growled, lifting herself up onto her hands and knees, trying to sweep her sodden tresses out of her features, only for them to fall back a second later, "kind of wanted to get out of there quickly, you know?"

"I couldn't keep hold of you; sorry."

"Don't worry about it; just fucking hurt, that's all."

She turned and sat down heavily, raking her claws through her hair like a makeshift comb. In the faint light of the chamber, she looked more tired than he remembered. The bags under her eyes had sunk almost to beneath her nostrils and were dark like the bruises on her jaw and cheek. Her shoulders were hunched, her breathing heavy, and she looked as though the noise of the water was lulling her to sleep. He knelt down next to her and shook her arm, to which her head snapped up, gaze locking with his.

"What happened to the emblem?"

"I picked it up, then the fucker knocked it out of my hand. Don't know where it ended up."

"Did you see what it was?"

"Nope, but I can guess. An Albino-noid, I think. I read a thing that said they make them here. Apparently they electrocute stuff. Just another thing we have to thank Umbrella for, right?"

"We have to get that key, or we aren't getting off this island."

"I think that cunt was after my glow stick rather than my tasty, tasty flesh," she said absently, her lips splitting into a devious smirk, "boy is _it_ in for a nasty surprise."

"What do you mean?"

As if to answer his question, there was a flat thump from the section of the river directly next to them, moments before a column of spray erupted skywards. Chris covered his head as the deluge splashed down around him, while Shak just let it pour over her, grinning all the while. He was struck by the sudden realisation that the redhead hadn't been carrying a rock after all; it had been a grenade.

"Think that killed it?"

"Probably just pissed it off. But we need to find that emblem. Can you get up?"

"Do I have a fucking choice?"

She clambered back to her feet, pushing off from the wall behind her. He held his hand out and she took it, his previous misstep seemingly forgotten, allowing him to help her up. A second later, she was shoving him full in the belly and sending him tumbling backwards onto the slope as she herself dove in the other direction, sliding away down the next decline.

The turbulent waters burst, the creature rising from below with a flap of its overgrown fins, flopping, boneless, across the concrete shore, a hair's breadth from crushing him flat. It was a grotesque parody of an animal, with a bloated torso swollen with fat and two spindly arms that almost seemed human, apart from the bizarre joints at the elbow. Odd spikes jutted out from its back, rubbery and bright red, wiggling animatedly in lines parallel to its spinal column, which was visible through its translucent skin.

Yelling a curse, he levelled his Glock, firing off shots at point-blank range into its leathery, pearl-coloured hide. It thrashed, wriggling its misshapen musculature back and forth, forcing him to sit back on the angled wall behind him and set his feet on what he imagined was its head. His bullets left fat, bloody pockmarks in its flesh, but it writhed out from under him and dropped back into the stream, vanishing beneath the rushing foam.

The dark-haired male secured his pistol and grabbed the shotgun strapped to his back, checking that it was fully loaded before running to the edge of the landing. His partner was standing below, staring into the water, blades twitching at the ends of her fingers as she searched for any sign of the monster's shadow.

He was halfway down the ramp when their opponent broke the surface for a second time, the female dodging neatly to the side as its body once again crashed down. His eyes widened when she leapt neatly astride its back, locking her legs around it and sliding her knives into its blubber, between the odd, red protrusions jutting out from its body. It let out a pulse of energy that registered as a crackle of static in his ears, the air almost thick with charge. Her inane expression still plastered across her face, she rode it like a mechanical bull as it bucked and convulsed.

And then it slid back beneath the water, with her on top of it.

He gave chase, racing along the bank as the creature swam deeper into the reservoir, carrying the young woman with it into the huge basin at the chamber's lowest point. Her head and shoulders jutted out of the water like a periscope, leaving a churning streak of white foam in her wake as she ploughed the length of the channel. Rank, discoloured ichor mingled with the spume, bleeding from the wounds she had inflicted and was probably still inflicting even now.

As he reached the bottom tier of the underground lake, he watched as Shak yawed wildly to the right before vanishing under the surface. It took him several moments to realise that the thing under her had rolled over, as though it were trying to drown her. He contemplated simply leaving his shotgun and pistol to the side and diving in after her, but he knew that she was neither a poor swimmer, nor an idiot.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, she emerged, disoriented and desperate for breath, but otherwise unscathed. He put his left hand to his mouth and whistled to her, giving her something to focus on. She took the lifeline and started to drag herself through the water towards him, her movements laboured by fatigue. He leaned forward, yelling out encouragement to her and reaching for her with his free hand, ready to get her out as quickly as possible.

No sooner had she reached the ledge, however, than the monster's mass began to power through the water in pursuit. He snatched her hand firmly, a bolt of pain shooting through his body, from the tips of his fingers down to the ends of his toes, as he did. The greasy feeling of static discharge hung heavily in the air, the water amplifying the natural electricity a hundredfold. He ignored it all, shut it out, and dragged her out of the water with one arm, straightening the other and loosing a spatter of buckshot in their adversary's direction.

It kept coming, lunging forward to flatten them, but they had already made their escape, scrambling away from the edge as it came down with an almighty splat. Chris fired again from his position on the ground, his gun blasting a hole in what would have been its face had its head not been blank, devoid of all features. It dragged itself forward with its deformed arms, reaching out towards them, as he shot it again, blowing one of its distended fingers off and putting more holes in its cranium.

Shak reached into a pocket on her jacket and retrieved another grenade. This one she rolled along the floor, and he watched as it stuck neatly beneath the Albinoid's mass, vanishing completely under it as it hauled itself onwards. The explosive went off with a muted thump, the blast effectively cutting the creature in half and throwing spools of intestine high into the air. Blood pattered down in a faint mist around them, and the enemy, its leading hand still stretched out in their direction, let out a faint shock that made the male wince, and then moved its last.

Breathless, the redhead lifted up her palm and held it out towards him, smiling weakly when he slapped his own hand into it, a moment of celebration for a battle hard-fought and a victory well-earned.

"Found this," she told him, forcing the words out between gasps for air and reaching into a second compartment on her tactical vest as she did so, "after it dragged me under."

And as if to compound their triumph, she produced their reward, dropping the indigo emblem, complete with golden halberd, onto the ground at his feet.

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----

"Come on," Chris said, marching ahead as they reached the U-shaped corridor that would lead them to the hangar.

He was focused, his mission clear; Claire was a single flight away, so close now that he could feel their reunion approaching. Whatever had happened to her on Rockfort, whatever might have occurred in the Antarctic with Alexia Ashford, he was certain that she had survived, and made him proud in doing so. His eagerness to find her, to confirm his assumptions and bring her back to the real world, away from this nightmarish blur of violence and monsters, hastened his pace. Shak lagged behind, but he was too absorbed with his objective to be frustrated with her.

He approached the door, holding up the golden halberd they had eventually pried out of the emblem. The metal was warm to the touch, having been in his hand ever since they had first acquired it. He had known where it went; it was just a matter of getting there.

As he neared, a crash rang out through the passage, spinning him around, Glock rising through instinct. A metal vent cover had been pushed away from where it was bolted, sending it crashing to the floor, and one of the immense spider creatures was powering towards him, rearing back with fangs exposed. He let out a curse, drawing a bead on the arachnid's dozen eyes, but it was already too close, a mere foot away from sinking its poison-tipped teeth into the meat of his thigh.

Even as his finger tightened on the trigger, however, another gunshot rang out and the thing burst open in a spray of ochre putrescence. He dodged to the side as it rolled past him, ventilated from abdomen to thorax, landing on its back and curling its limbs into its body pathetically. Nodding his thanks to the redhead as she approached, the barrel of her Colt smoking lightly, he forced his breathing level and moved away from the wall he had flattened himself against.

"Time to get your finger out, Chrissy," she insisted, ejecting her magazine and replacing the missing bullet, "by my count, I've got twice as many points as you now, and that's not including all the ones I got from before you arrived, either. Better hope there's another Albino-noid in the Antarctic; then maybe you can kill _that_ one."

"Funny, I thought we took that thing down together," he pointed out.

"Yeah, but you only get points for the deathblow and that was all me, baby."

He shook his head, smiling slightly at how pleased she seemed with herself, before turning his attention back to the task at hand, holding the key out for the scanner set into the side of the door. The electronic eye scrutinised his offering and then, with a hiss of hydraulics, it whirred open, revealing the deep shadow of the hangar's interior. They strode in, letting the door hum closed behind them.

From out of the darkness, a Harrier emerged, ushered onto the boarding platform by mechanical arms, fuel lines and cables detaching neatly from its body and slithering away out of sight.

"Very fucking fancy. You sure you can fly one of these?"

"Ex-Air Force. I used to earn my _living_ flying these."

"After you then, flyboy," she said with a grin, gesturing toward the ladder up to the cockpit and letting him take the lead.

He clambered up, sliding neatly into position behind the controls of the aircraft, giving himself a few moments to familiarise himself with the layout. It had been awhile, more than a few years actually, since he had last been in the air, more since that had been his job. All the same, the old instincts hopped out of mothballs in an instant, the feel of the throttle in his grip familiar and comfortable. Compared with the last few hours, this was probably going to be a cakewalk.

The redhead settled into the seat behind him, noisily making herself secure and settling back in the plush, leather upholstery. He ran through the motions, performed a quick flight check, and made ready to depart. But something was niggling at him, distracting him.

"Hey Shak," he called back, "what the hell did you mean by points anyway?"

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----

The Antarctic was cold.

On paper, that sounded like a fairly obvious statement, but pretty soon after they arrived Chris realised that nothing could have prepared him for the reality. It hadn't been clear until they'd landed and the insulated bubble of the jet's flight compartment had peeled away, but then it struck him hard. His body started to quiver, his teeth rattling in his mouth, and his breath turned to thick vapour in the air. It made old wounds ache and new injuries throb; his head started to pound from it; the taste of it settled in his mouth, a genuinely bitter chill, caustic on the skin and on the tongue.

"Shak," he called, quietly the first time, then louder, reaching back and shaking her awake, her snoring hitching and then stopping altogether as she woke up.

She'd fallen asleep pretty soon after they'd taken off and had been snorting loudly during the entire flight, although that had sometimes been drowned out by the noise of the engines. Turbulence had woken her up a couple of times, but never for very long. That suited him fine; he'd needed to concentrate, so he wouldn't have been the best of company anyway. The noise of her slumber had been comforting, at least; it was good to know that he had backup, and that one of them would be well-rested when they arrived.

She yawned, and almost immediately started to shiver.

"It's f-f-fucking f-f-freezing in here," she said, clambering stiffly out of the cockpit and joining him on the walkway that had slid into place over the aircraft, a refuelling already in progress.

As badly as he was feeling it, he knew it had to be that much worse for her. Her damp clothing hadn't been an issue on Rockfort, where the ambient temperature was mild, but here it must have been like wearing snow. He only hoped that the inner chambers were warmer.

"We should keep moving; it's the only way to keep warm, _and_ do what we came here to do," he asserted, forcing his voice level with a supreme effort of will.

"Can't argue with that."

They walked on, leaving the Harrier to rest in its cradle. Chris hoped that it would be ready for an outward journey by the time they found his sister; he didn't relish the idea of having to wait around for it. In truth, he was kind of hoping that he'd get to blow the place sky-high before he left; he didn't know what purpose it served, but any loss for Umbrella was a good one in his book.

First things first though; he had to find Claire.

The hangar opened out into a deep well, concrete walls rising high above and descending into darkness below. A metal gantry circled the pit, descending further along via a ladder to a second level. The air was colder here, and snowflakes were tumbling through the air. Frost had gathered on the steel beneath their feet and the handrail was encrusted with it. The reason was obvious; the nose of a gigantic aircraft, most probably a cargo place, had punched through the wall from the facility's exterior. It hung, like some huge hunting trophy, a mere dozen feet above the walkway, which was littered with debris from the crash.

"Holy f-f-fuck!" the redhead grunted, "that's the p-p-plane; the one that Claire and her b-b-boyfriend were on."

"Here's hoping they're close," he said, almost unable to keep his shivering under control.

They advanced, Chris taking the lead, the redhead to his back, both of them with sidearms drawn. The empty wreck hung overhead, ominous and abandoned, as they passed beneath. Their footsteps echoed in its cavernous innards, but the noise was muted by the howling gale that was passing over the facility, a furious blizzard that transformed the sky into a rushing tide of white. It had been tough going trying to fly in that storm, but both he and the Harrier had been up to the challenge; the jet was a custom model, as though it had been fitted especially for that climate.

The ladder leading to the lower tier was slippery with frost; his boots dislodged sparkling crystals in faint sprays as he climbed down, his partner covering him from the top. He was halfway down when something rushed up out of the abyss below to hover in front of him, framed by the rungs of the ladder. It was a twisted coil of flesh, long and thick, attached to something deep below, its globular head tapering to a blunt point at its end. The fat bulb bobbed and weaved in the air, almost as though it were examining him.

"What the hell?!" he yelled, which seemed to startle the tentacle, causing it to surge forward, slamming into his chest and throwing him to the metal platform beneath.

His body bounced hard, but even as he landed his hands were rising, bringing the Glock to bear, squeezing off a tight cluster of bullets that split the writhing mass. It shed thick chunks of meat in rains of putrid slime, which wriggled along the ground around him. Even with pieces missing, it moved with purpose, listing as though wounded, before shrinking back into the shadows of the chasm.

He rolled over, wincing as his back convulsed painfully, and saw the squirming pieces that had fallen from it open out, unfurling legs and spreading wings, before falling, slack and lifeless, to the floor. They looked almost like overgrown ants; there had probably been hundreds of them fused and collected together in that single tentacle alone. He watched them die as Shakahnna clambered down to join him, and took the hand that she offered him, letting her pull him back to his feet.

"What the fuck was that?"

"Damned if I know," he replied, groaning as he returned to his vertical base; fortunately, he hadn't banged his head on the frozen metal, but the fall had still hurt like hell, "let's just get out of here, in case it comes back."

She nodded her agreement, glancing over at the double doors nearby, before turning her head to another door, and a staircase, further along. She looked to him for suggestions and he shrugged, marching over to the nearest and tried the handle. It was stuck fast, caked in ice, but his efforts produced a satisfying crack from the other side; he could almost hear it giving way. Shak joined him, taking the second handle, and together they wrenched back on the doors, wrestling with them until they sprang open in a flurry of frost.

A blast of frigid air rushed out, wrapping him in a cold embrace that sank beneath his skin and seeped into his bones. It hit his partner with its full brunt, chasing away the warmth of the adrenaline that had struck her system and setting her shivering again. She let out a curse, screwing up her features as it washed over her. He could sympathise; the temperature stung the bare skin of his face and forearms, making him wince.

They stepped out onto a second frost-encrusted gantry. Darkness reigned within, wisps of vapour dancing and twisting like ghosts in the shadows. Chris snapped on his flashlight and aimed it into the room. Less than a foot below their perch lay a sheet of frozen water, so thick that nothing of the lower level could be seen beneath it. Above, the entire ceiling of the room was enveloped in a thick, viscous residue, smothering the lights, hanging in uneven pillars and columns at random intervals about the chamber.

As the beam played over their glistening surfaces, he could almost make out the thin, translucent mesh of spider's web and the pulsating, throbbing masses of egg sacs.

"This p-p-place is f-f-fucking grotty," his partner said, her teeth rattling as they walked to the rail.

No sooner had she spoken than the heavy doors banged shut behind them. He snapped around, a circle of illumination falling on the sealed entrance as the redhead slammed her weight into it. It didn't open, or even give by the slightest fraction. Something was holding it closed from the other side, something massive and unyielding.

"Guess that leaves us with one option," he noted, turning back to scan the rest of the dark hall.

The web made the walkway around the room impassable, and so they slid under the handrail and onto the ice below. They both wore military issue boots with excellent traction, but that was practically meaningless on the flawless surface. Fortunately, there were patches of hardened web stuck to the ground that gave them a more stable footing. As they passed one column, Shak reached out and knocked on its rough face.

"Solid as a fucking rock," she pointed out, "what did this, anyway?"

"Probably spiders. But a hell of a lot bigger than the ones on Rockfort if this is what they're capable of."

"And I thought the last lot were fucking creepy," she said, before grinning at him in the glow from her own torch as she flicked it on and let the luminescence play across her rounded features, "still, good news for you; giant ones are worth even more points."

He nodded absently, sweeping his light across the surroundings, jerking it back and forth at the vaguest hint of movement. Each time, he caught a glimpse of a dissipating puff of mist or the wriggle of a growing embryo, but never any kind of real threat. The tension made him edgy; even in the cold, he was beginning to sweat and he held his finger tight to the trigger of his Glock, just waiting for a target.

Almost as though it sensed his apprehension, something lunged out of the darkness and his aim snapped around, squeezing off a bullet even before he had registered his enemy. The cocooned zombie slumped within its straitjacket of webbing, the slug having punched a hole in its skull at the temple and emptied its putrid brain all over the column behind it. He let out the breath he hadn't even realised he'd been holding and stepped back, taking in the bound corpse. More than a dozen, fist-sized pods squirmed on its torso, awaiting the feast that would come after their birth.

He let out a grunt of disgust and backed away further, before a bubble of something disgusting dropped from the ceiling, splattering wetly on the ground beside him. This time, he let out a yell.

Shak turned to look at him, her torch flicking from his face down to the foul-smelling puddle on the floor. He moved his own beam upwards, fixing it on a shape obscured by the mist and slime, affixed to the ceiling above.

It was vaguely human shaped, save for a number of limp appendages sprouting from its back, which were plastered to the surface behind it. Its skin was the colour of mould, an unpleasant grey-green, shrivelled by the cold. He could make out straps criss-crossing its torso, restraining its arms to its sides, while a blindfold and gag hid the majority of its face. Around its waist it wore a shredded skirt of grey material, stained with blood; shackles shone dully around its ankles, rusted with age. Across its body, dozens of deep puncture wounds sat open, drooling thick, violet ichor. It was that blood, he realised, that was dripping down onto the icy sheet beneath.

"What the hell is that?"

"Fucked. Shame, it might have been worth a few points too," the redhead said flatly, before stooping to grab something from the floor, "_this_ might be important."

She stood, holding the item she had retrieved in the illumination from her flashlight, revealing it to be a small, silver earring, intricately carved and inset with a pristine, oval-shaped emerald. Chris grunted.

"I really hope this doesn't mean more goddamn puzzles."

The ground bucked under their feet, causing them both to stagger, as something heavy fell to the ground with the heart-rending sound of cracking ice. He whipped around, but a huge shape lunged past him, knocking him off his feet and sending him sprawling to the frozen surface. His eyes registered the afterimage of a creature bigger than he was, a fat, bulbous body moving impossibly fast on thick, hairless legs, fangs extended and glistening with poison.

In the next instant, he felt himself skidding along the floor, moments before his back slammed hard into one of the solid pillars that had been rooted to the ice. Somewhere in the darkness, he could hear the ear-splitting bark of Shak's Colt, the beam of her torch flashing erratically between the strands of web and columns. He wasn't concerned for her; she was S.T.A.R.S, just like him, and he knew that she could handle whatever Umbrella could throw at them.

He sat up, steadied his hands, bracing his Glock against his flashlight and his flashlight against his Glock, raking the radiance through the shadows. Trailing banners of residue sparkled with crystals of frost, the ice glowed beneath, and immense shapes moved with purpose through the murk. Something moved to his left; he adjusted his aim and squeezed off a half dozen shots, peppering the drooling features of a gargantuan spider as it charged towards him. It reeled backwards, covering its face with its trunk-like limbs.

He emptied the handgun into its exposed underside, gore exploding from the wounds and freezing solid against the floor. When the bolt snapped shut, he thrust the weapon back into its holster on his thigh, grabbing for the machine pistol strapped under his left arm. He brought it around, loosing a salvo in the beast's direction, the fully-automatic bucking and snarling in his grip. His bullets shredded through the monster's legs, bursting its eyes and tearing apart its brain.

Finally, the creature reared up, staggering, and slumped to the ground, leaking putrescence from the wound that had once been its grotesque features.

Another oversized arachnid lunged from the darkness to his right and he threw himself away from it, hearing it impact solidly against the pillar as he moved. He fell onto his back, dropping his torch onto his stomach and grasping for the second T.M.P, bringing both to bear and unleashing hell. The dual volley stitched along the creature's length, blowing apart the legs on its right side and cutting it in half from front to back. It crashed to the ice, steaming organs, unidentifiable, bizarre things he had never seen before, spilling out from the chasm in its body.

Something brushed his back; something else prickled the bare skin of his arm. With a grunt of disgust, he shook off whatever was touching him and pushed himself to his feet, securing one of his guns and retrieving his flashlight. The luminescence picked out tiny, eight-legged monsters, already the size of his palm after only a few seconds of birth. As he swept the beam over them, he realised that they were rushing out in a thick sea from the corpse of the first spider.

"Son of a bitch!" he snapped, his skin crawling at the sheer number of them.

He took off running, his boots churning the creatures into stains beneath his feet. It went against the grain to leave a potentially dangerous enemy alive, even if they wouldn't necessarily pose a threat to him later. The idea that there could have been other, innocent survivors in that place was enough to warrant their extermination, in case they stumbled into that chamber. Unfortunately, outnumbered, low on ammo, and lost in the darkness, he didn't see that he had much choice. Maybe if he could find Shak and her grenade gun, though, there'd be a chance to set that right.

He scrambled across the ice, finding his way by sheer luck to the metal gantry and hauling himself up onto it, before spinning and shining his light over the room.

"Shak!" he called out, hoping to catch some glimpse of her in the shadows.

She didn't answer, but a second later he heard the sound of something metallic snapping into place, and the coughing discharge of her grenade launcher. A flower of flame blossomed into life less than twenty feet from where he was standing, and he saw the dark shapes of over a dozen huge spiders shrinking away. He also saw the redhead, her rounded figure haloed by the fire, her mane glowing brightly, almost as though it too were alight, in the radiance.

He yelled to her again, watching her turn to look at him, moments before the sound of ice fracturing cut through the gentle rumble of the miniature inferno. With a hearty selection of swear words, she bolted towards him, dodging past the cowering monsters as they lunged at her, treating one of them to a boot in the face for its troubles. As she ran, she slipped another fat cartridge from her bandolier and slid it home.

He covered her, spraying short, controlled bursts into the crowd that was beginning to turn in pursuit of her. Once she was within a few feet of his perch, she leapt towards him, wrapping her muscular arms around the handrail and letting him steady her. She turned and aimed her weapon, which barked, its payload bursting forth and exploding with a flat thump against the ground.

The leading arachnid ran straight into the hole and plunged down into the freezing waters, dying instantly. Its brethren paused in their stride, but the ice had already begun to crack around them, the two grenades having weakened the floor beneath their feet. Some panicked, their struggles sending them crashing through the crumbling surface; others waited even as the ground split around them, their rafts upturning and flipping them into the lake. Pillars broke away from the ceiling and slipped into the depths, eggs bursting open, limp infant bodies spiralling outwards from them.

"Time to move," Chris insisted, dragging his partner's bulk over the rail and onto the walkway.

She pointed something out behind him and he spun on the spot, bringing his T.M.P up, but seeing only the empty path ahead of them. Then he realised that she had been gesturing towards a door set into the wall only a few feet away. He hurried towards it, his feet splashing through freezing liquid as it began to rise up through the grille beneath, Shak hot on his heels. He wrenched it open, straining against the gradually rising tide, which swirled through the exit and started to spread out into the corridor beyond.

The redhead threw herself into the passage; a second later he did the same. Together they seized the handle, dragging the door back into place to stop the flow that was streaming out around their boots. It slammed shut and locked in place. Chris let his back fall against the sealed opening, sliding a fresh magazine for his sub-machinegun from a pouch on his jacket and reloading, before doing the same for its twin and his Glock. Shak simply let out a deep sigh of relief and let herself sag against the wall.

"The itsy-bitsy spiders went up the water spout," she started to mutter, expression breaking into a broad smile, "down came the rain and washed the spiders out."

There was a whirring noise from above them, and he looked up to find himself staring straight into the robotic eye of one of the sentinels that Wesker has dispatched. A beam of light shone out of its mounted projector, turning red as it settled on his head, and it let out a sharp whistle. A second later, a 9mm round punctured its casing and turned its internal machinery into scrap. Unfortunately, the damage had been done; the shrill cry of a Hunter sounded from somewhere ahead.

"Out came a cock-breath to spoil all the fun," the young woman continued, "which is why I'll cut his knackers off and leave him with a cun-tuh!"

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----

She watched the destruction of the arachnid colony with disinterest. The spiders were not tied to her in the same manner as her ants; rather, they were a self-contained dominion that had pledged loyalty to her. For their agreement to follow her commands, she had granted them possession of her father's corpse. Even a failure such as he was not entirely without worth; he had served well as food for more capable beings. The viral augmentation of his body had granted them power, which they had in turn utilised to defend the innermost chambers from any further disturbances. It had been an amicable agreement.

However, ultimately, their deaths were a minor concern, of no true consequence to her.

Of far greater importance was the loss of her subjects. Though a mere handful had met their end by the guns of the intruders, it was enough to cause her some manner of grief. She was them, just as they were her; she could feel what they felt, see what they saw, eternally behind her eyes. As the Queen, it was her mind that guided them, and their presence that granted her power beyond what her own flesh could yield.

She would yet have her vengeance against the two latest interlopers, as well as the other recent arrivals, those that had come by water into the sanctity of her hive.

There were other matters of retribution that required her attention, however. She gave her servants leave to observe the mortals that had trespassed unbidden within her home and turned her focus to those that were already within her grasp. The girl was already confined within the grand hall, unconscious and awaiting her final moments. She intended to have the boy serve as her executioner; fitting, she felt, that the one who had defended her so doggedly, to the point of slaying her brother, should be the one to kill her in turn.

She spared a thought for Alfred, sequestered away in the cryogenic chamber that she had been birthed from. He was not yet beyond hope; the machine would preserve him and she would devise a way to reunite them, the loyal soldier with his Queen, once more. Even imagining what might have been had he not reached her in time, she felt a surge of wrath within that made her followers quiver with the anticipation of her command.

Instead, she bade them silent. The torment she would produce could sate her far better, and amuse her for much longer, than a simple act of violence.

She entered the coliseum, her subjects lifting the gate to permit her access on a mere, unspoken whim. Slumped against the pillar at the centre was the boy, bare forearms and features purple with bruising. Even as she approached, however, he stirred.

Though Alexia's abilities far surpassed those of all human beings, her knowledge of them was still in its infancy, though there was no doubt in her mind that she possessed power befitting an Ashford. As an example of it, she reached out one slender arm towards an armoured statue nearby, gripping the haft of the immense halberd resting in its grip. It came away easily, without a single moment of exertion on her part, and she hefted the bulky weapon as though it were of no more substance than the air around her.

The boy's eyes fluttered open, a groan escaping his lips, and then he saw her approaching, screaming and squeezing his eyes shut as she brought the huge axe around. Its blade cleaved neatly into the stone, mere inches from the side of his head, the handle braced firmly against his chest. When he realised what she had done, he tried to struggle out of his position, but she had fixed him there, and there he would remain until such time as she was prepared to release him.

Her strength was remarkable, even by her own estimations. Here was a young male in the prime of his life, albeit injured and fatigued, and she had incapacitated him, with merely a second's consideration. She was power, unbridled, untamed and unconquerable; truly, she was a successor worthy, perhaps even surpassing, the great Veronica herself. All would look upon her and despair, and those that did not kneel before her would be made to supplicate, or perish at her hands.

"Are you frightened, insignificant one?" she asked him, as she gazed into his eyes, a primal spark of fear within them, like a wounded and cornered animal.

"Fuck you," he growled out, though his voice was choked with terror. She revelled in it, delighting in his suffering. His words, his disrespect, were nothing to her, just as he was nothing, but his pain, his anguish, was to be savoured. This was _her_ revenge to be extracted.

"Do you wish to be reunited with your love?" she said, and she could see the desperate glimmer of hope appear, no matter how he tried to smother it with suspicion.

"What have you done with Claire?" he snarled back.

"You will see her again; I promise it," Alexia insisted, holding out her hand and permitting one of her subjects to detach itself from the ceiling. It fluttered down and settled in her palm, sitting obediently, its tiny heart aflutter with the honour it had been granted.

"What are you doing, you crazy bitch?" he snapped, his voice losing its aggression amid a sea of distrust and fear, as he took in the creature perched upon her fingers.

"You will see," she explained, slowly, softly, as she leaned towards him, "just as _we_ see."

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----


	7. Episode Seven: The Proper Way

**Episode Seven: The Proper Way To Threaten A Lady**

"Whoa," Chris grunted, eyes wide with disbelief as they took in the vastness of the entrance hall, "talk about déjà vu."

It was the Spencer Mansion. Past the silent and neglected playground, with its faded carousel and bone dry fountain, beyond the ornate double doors, lay a scene from Chris's memories, and darkest recurring nightmares. Plush carpet ran from his position to the foot of the sweeping staircase and ascended with it between banisters of carved, veneered oak to the upper level, where a balcony loomed overhead. Smooth, polished tiles shimmered in the light from antique candelabras and the huge, crystal chandelier suspended above, which scattered its luminescence in glittering fragments across the chamber. Expensive works of art hung on walls or stood upon end tables gathering dust and steeping in the decadence of their surroundings.

He took it all in, the details flashing before his eyes in a heartbeat, and then his attention turned to the cocoon of viscous residue plastered across the wall at the top of the staircase before him. A figure hung suspended within the solidified gel, imprisoned and awaiting execution, a figure that he recognised in a moment.

"Claire."

He mounted the steps three at a time, bounding up to reach her. Even before he made it to the summit, he could see that she was alive, even if she was unconscious; her head bobbed freely, shaking from side to side as though she were dreaming. Her features were purple with bruising and pinched with the horrors that she was seeing in her head. He put a hand to her face, brushing her cheek gently, trying to calm her nightmares, before moving his fingers to check her pulse. It was strong and steady; she wasn't in any immediate danger. The relief he felt went some way to easing his tension.

Slipping his combat knife from the sheath buckled to his shoulder, he ran a hand along the surface of her confinement, gauging her position beneath it. It felt sticky under his fingertips, not recent enough to still be pliable, but not old enough to have fully hardened either. That suited him fine.

He plunged the blade to its hilt into the mass, leaving a margin for error beside her. It sank in and then stuck fast, catching in the sludge. He struggled and fought against it, hacking and slashing at it again and again, slicing through rubbery strands and carving apart hardened, brittle fragments. As it began to fall apart, he tore away at loose pieces with his left hand, gradually revealing her, stuck to the wall behind. She was bruised, bloodied and battered, the custom jacket he had commissioned for her stained and torn; in truth, she looked worse than he felt. She had been through hell, but that ended now.

Dropping his dagger, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her away from the wall, peeling her out from the inside of the organic cage. It clung to her back with its strands, tugging at her hair and clothing, but he swept them away with his hand. He lowered her down to the carpet, laying her head back gently as her eyes fluttered open. Her fingers bunched in the front of his tactical vest, clutching desperately at him as though she wasn't sure that he was real.

"Chris?" she croaked weakly, pulling herself in close to him and wrapping her arms around his back in a tight embrace, "God, I was so worried."

"You kidding me?" he asked her, ruffling her dark hair the way he had once done when they were young as they parted, "I thought tough girls like you didn't get worried."

"I can't believe you're here; I almost thought I'd never see you again," she said, smiling broadly up at him, features glowing with whole-hearted elation, as she lay back, propping herself up on her elbow, "how did you find me?"

"You can thank your friend Leon for that; he told me where you were."

Her eyes widened, elation faltering for the briefest of moments with her surprise, before her grin returned, refreshed. "I _knew_ he wouldn't let me down; he always _said_ I could count on him. And ... I should have known I could trust you to come find me, even if I couldn't find you."

"He told me what you did in Raccoon, Claire, and in Paris," he said, gripping her shoulder firmly, reassuringly, "I'm proud of you, sis'. Damn proud."

"That means a lot, coming from you. But how did you know I was here, in the Antarctic? I didn't even know about this place when I contacted Leon; I was still at Rockfort."

"Yeah, I've been there too. Good job, too; it wasn't until my little run-in with Wesker that I actually found out where you really were."

"Wesker?!" she asked, stunned, "you saw him? He didn't hurt you, did he? Chris, how is he even still alive? I thought he died in Arklay."

"So did I. Son of a bitch doesn't know when to quit. Packs a mean punch now too. In fact, if it hadn't been for another friend of yours, he might have finished me off right there."

She searched his face for a few moments, incomprehension reigning in her eyes, before her expression suddenly lit with understanding. "You mean Shak? She's alive?"

"Better than that; she's here. We split up to find you, but if we head to the hangar she'll meet us there. Don't worry; we're all going to get out of here together. I promise."

He moved to help her up, but she grabbed for his flak jacket again, another thought fighting its way to the forefront of her mind and clamouring for their attention. "Wait; we have to find Steve!" she insisted, struggling to her feet, using him for support as she did.

"The one Shak mentioned, right? If he's important to you, then we'll find him; I promise."

Her face coloured slightly and, for the briefest of moments, she seemed almost embarrassed, too self-conscious to meet his gaze. "W-what did Shak tell you, exactly?"

Someone laughed, a cold, female voice rising in a measured refrain of malicious amusement. Their eyes turned as one, fixing on the source of the disturbance, settling on the figure standing on the balcony overlooking the hall. There, with hands resting upon the rail before her, was the same woman whose face he had seen in the frozen specimen room all those hours ago.

Golden hair descended in a soft cascade down her back, sharp, austere features punctuated by two glowing, sinisterly intelligent eyes the colour of sapphires. Her gaze seemed aloof and somehow predatory, but also detached, as though she were looking upon insects. She wore an elegant, mauve dress cut from sleek, expensive silk, a pair of ivory-coloured gloves that extended past her elbows, and a choker studded with a shining ruby. From her position on the upper level, she gave off a powerful, almost omniscient air, as though she were hovering Godlike above them, waiting to pass judgement.

"No way!" Claire uttered incredulously, "it can't be ... Alexia?"

"I had once conceived of a world where humanity would serve as the slave caste in a great and noble empire," the blonde said, ignoring her, head tilted regally upward so that her view of them travelled the length of her slender nose, "but now my heart is filled with nought but contempt for your entire, inferior race. For the death of my brother, I will see your kind scourged from this earth. Soon, you too will come to know the pain of a sibling lost; you will be the first of many."

"What the hell have you done with Steve?" his sister snapped, starting towards the stairs.

Chris grabbed her by the arm, stopping her, and snatched his Glock from its holster on his thigh, pressing it firmly into her hands. "Take this," he insisted, as she nodded her thanks, "I'll head left and cut off her retreat; you go right and circle around behind her."

She nodded, ready, even as their host began to speak again. "If it is the boy that concerns you, follow me, if you dare, and all will be made clear to you," she insisted, thin lips turning upwards into a cruel smirk that did not look out of place on her features.

He ignored her, yelling for Claire to move and darting for the nearest steps, drawing one of his T.M.P's and fixing it squarely on the other woman's right thigh. When he saw that she hadn't moved from her position, he hesitated on the trigger and glanced up at her, and the expression of subtle self-satisfaction, of unbridled triumph, she still wore.

And, at that moment, the staircase exploded outwards in an eruption of pulverised stone and splintered wood.

The floor dropped out beneath his feet, which pedalled air for the briefest of seconds, before he fell heavily onto the pile of debris gathering below. His right leg buckled, twisting awkwardly under his weight as he rolled to the floor, and something popped sickly inside the joint. He let out a grunt of pain, drowned out by the roar of the collapse all around him, and then came to a stop, lying amid the rubble, dust raining down over him.

The whipping, writhing mass sundered the balcony on which Alexia was standing, before curling upwards and parting around its end, falling down around her like a curtain. He heard Claire shooting at it, three quick shots in close succession, each one hammering into the living walls of the tentacle as they shrouded their mistress from attack. Then, with her in its grasp, it retreated, rising into the air to reveal an empty space where the blonde had once stood, and then sliding back through the hole it had created.

He looked up, watching as his sister cleared the gap in the upper tier with a running leap, his handgun still clutched tightly in her grip. At first, he thought that she had gone on ahead, but then her face appeared at the edge of the chasm, peering down at him as he rolled up into a sitting position.

"Chris?"

"Don't worry about me," he called up to her, waving her away with his hand, "go and find Steve. I'll be fine; I'll be right behind you."

"Alright, but you'd _better_ be okay. You said we were getting out of here together, remember? Don't you dare break your promise."

He nodded to her, biting back on the pulsing agony in his leg, which was hanging slack, too painful to move. Her eyes lingered on him for a while, apprehensive and guilty at the thought of leaving him, injured as he was. But he was alive, and as long as he had breath left in his body, he could, and would, defend himself; she understood that better than most. Steve's fate was unknown; he was the one who needed her help now. She knew what he expected, what he wanted, her to do.

And so she turned and ran, as fast as her battered body could carry her, in search of their missing friend.

Chris silently wished her Godspeed, and ran his hands along the length of his left leg, fingers tracing the line of the dislocated joint, swollen with blood, bulging sickly to the right. This wasn't going to be easy and it wasn't going to be nice, but if he was going to move, if he was going to catch up with Claire, if he was going to escape alive, he knew what he needed to do. He gripped the bone at either side of the joint, braced himself, and twisted it back into place.

It popped neatly into position and the shot of pain that followed sent convulsions along the length of his body, a sharp cry escaping his lips before he clenched his teeth around it and forced it down. He kicked out with his good leg, sending a hunk of concrete skidding across the floor, and then swung his arm out behind him, slamming the base of his fist into the wall.

Breathing heavily, he staggered to his feet, sliding the shotgun from its position on his back.

"I always keep my promises," he grunted to himself, "always."

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----

Vapour erupted in thick plumes from the side of the machine, vents spewing the result of the thaw across the chamber's floor, where it seeped through grilles and away along channels beneath the metal. Locks cycled, releasing with the intermittent hiss of hydraulics, and the door hummed open on its runners. Alfred Ashford fell out, his body thudding against the ground and lying sprawled, his joints stiff from the cryogenic process. His features had turned pale beneath the crust of smeared cosmetics still plastered across his cheeks. Frozen blood caked the front of his regimental jacket, more than a dozen ragged bullet holes having shredded the fabric.

"Nae joy, D.T.B," Shak greeted, stooping to check the psycho-popsicle's pulse and finding none, "looks like I owe toots or her boyfriend fifty points. I'll have to try double hard to cut off cock-breath's nuts."

She rolled him over onto his back, scanning his body for anything that might have been interesting or important. It took her a few moments to find it, but her eyes eventually settled on the silver ring on his right hand, fashioned in a similar style to the earring that she'd found in the spider's lair. Embedded in it was a sapphire, the same size and shape as the emerald that was already in her possession.

"Shak for the win," she said, as she attempted to wiggle the band from his finger.

When it didn't come off, she sliced neatly through the knuckle with one of her claws and slipped it from the bloody end, pocketing it beside its partner. Then, she jammed the severed digit up the corpse's nose, sniggering to herself as she did. God only knew what the jewels were used for, or how many there were in total, but the fact that at least two people at the Antarctic base had them suggested a pattern. Hopefully, it was a pattern that would lead the two of them to their missing companions, and then lead all four of them back to the jet.

She was fairly sure Claire would be okay to sit on Steve's lap, so long as Chris didn't mind sitting on hers.

With the item retrieved, she quit the metal tomb and strode out into the corridor beyond. A streak of Alfred's blood ran along the wall, cooked dry by the fire she had lit there. When she had first arrived on that level, she had found the room dominated by what looked like an immense anthill, which rose up through the centre of the chamber and towered overhead. Flocks of its denizens had littered the walkway that surrounded it, twitching and fluttering and generally being unpleasant.

And so she had taken an old oil lamp from a study on that floor and spread its contents liberally over the floor and walls. A flame grenade, her last remaining one, had seen the horrid little insects scattering, their wings banging and burning, before they fell, disintegrating, into the abyss below. It had been so satisfying that she had gone so far as to graciously decline the points for it, even if there had been dozens, maybe even hundreds, of them, and even if the plan had been ingenious. That way, it would give the other players a chance to catch up; she was generous like that.

She'd also found a painting in the study of a woman in period Victorian dress, apparently called Veronica Ashford; it wasn't the first one that she had seen, either. Whoever she had been, her descendents obviously thought very highly of her, which was why the redhead had given her a much-needed cock-and-moustache makeover with a pen she had found. It was almost a shame that Alfred was already dead, since she would have loved to see him die of a rage-induced brain aneurism when he saw it. Unfortunately, she would just have to content herself with imagining it.

She sauntered out to the edge of the gantry, looking up at the scorched nest and delighting in her vandalism. Above, metal girders and struts, as well as more organic-looking creations, supported the enormous structure; observation decks overlooked it at intervals. This was probably where Alexia and her team had worked, collecting data on the creatures fused with the Veronica virus, before she had supposedly died and the entire project had been shut down.

As far as Shak could tell, from the files she had read, Alfred's sister was, unfortunately, or fortunately if you wanted her fifty points, still alive and well. She had set in motion a plan to remake the world into a hive of obedient drones, with herself as Queen. Her ants would leave the Antarctic base and spread out across the world, nesting in the bodies of any and all human beings, transforming them into monsters and, worse, slaves to her will. Letting them grow and develop in the frozen climate had increased their resilience; no natural boundaries would stop them from spreading. Humanity would essentially be wiped out.

And that was why she wasn't planning on letting any of them escape. She'd take the elevator back to the upper level; there she could hopefully rendezvous with Chris, find Claire and Steve, and blow the whole place to little, smoking pieces. The Ashfords, their mutant creepy-crawlies and any other lurking Umbrella scum could all go to hell together.

That would have been the ideal goal. Unfortunately, when she reached the lift and pushed the call button to open the door, she found herself staring into the smooth, ageless and eternally neutral features of Albert Wesker.

"Fucker!" she yelled out, hands snapping to the pair of 9mm pistols holstered under her arms, tugging them free and bringing them to bear in unison.

Her bullets met him in mid-stride, barely even staggering him as he began to walk towards her, his pace measured and unhurried. His tactical vest absorbed most of the bullets; others ricocheted from the walls or stuck in the thick metal of the elevator door. One round punctured his right shoulder, causing him to jerk stiffly to one side, expression pinching slightly with an unrestrained wince; a second sliced neatly across his collarbone, barely making him frown.

The two weapons ran dry at once and, in that instant, he closed the distance between them, his hand snapping out to seize her throat. Her back struck the rail that separated her from the chasm at the chamber's centre, her upper body leaning dangerously out over the sheer drop, only for him to grab a fistful of her collar. He held her firmly in place, preventing her from falling, before whipping her around with such force that she left her feet, her spine slamming hard into the wall.

Her dual handguns clattered to the floor, moments before she too fell to the metal walkway, groaning painfully from the blow. He loomed over her and she lashed out with her claws, impaling his groin through the material of his combat trousers. His hand bunched in her harness, dragging her upright and ramming a heavy knee into her midsection. The blades slipped out of his flesh, but he didn't make a sound, silent as he forced her front against the wall, holding her in place with one hand.

"It was my hope that our paths would cross yet again, my dear," he informed her, and she watched from the corner of her eye as he removed a blade from the sheath on his shredded flak jacket, "from the moment that I first spilt your blood, I have been aware of an irregularity in your internal biology. Now that my audience with Lady Ashford draws near, and my schedule is less exacting, I feel that the time has come to clarify this matter, for my own personal edification."

"Fuck off," she growled, the pressure of her cheek against the steel causing the bruised flesh there to throb painfully.

"Eloquent as ever," he commented, his voice calm and restrained despite her struggles, despite the blows she was raining against his legs with her feet, which would have buckled, and perhaps even broken, the bones of another man.

The point of his knife pressed against the skin of her left cheek, the side previously unmarred by scarring, puckering the flesh and sinking down to slice the muscle beneath. She gasped, but not because the sensation was entirely unpleasant. A thick, crimson bead blossomed out from the wound, trailing across the dark, swollen tissue. He brushed it away from her features with the flat of his weapon, smearing the gore across the pristine steel and the pale skin of her face. Then, in a display that made her eyes widen with disbelief, he ran his tongue along its length, tasting her.

"As I expected; I can detect no trace of infection," he noted, "it would appear that you are one of the rare number whose genetic makeup allow them to neutralise the infectivity of the virus. Of one hundred humans, only three will have such a resilience, though fewer of them are able to survive the infection process; most simply perish from their injuries."

"I could have told you that if you'd asked, thou cock-muncher," Shak grunted, although admittedly, that wasn't strictly true. She wouldn't have told him anything, asked or not; Wesker wasn't even getting the time of day from her, not after the stories she had heard from Chris.

"This uncommon quality of yours is one that my research personnel would find most intriguing, I am sure," he explained, "test subjects in possession of immunity are quite exceptional, I assure you."

"Listen, cunt. I don't need you to tell me I'm great; I already _knew_ that."

Her free right hand snatched the Colt from the holster on her thigh, jamming it into his midriff, twisting her own arm at an awkward angle. She worked the trigger feverishly, pumping bullets into his torso and sending him staggering backwards, away from her. The clip ran dry as she turned around, the last of the high calibre slugs punching into his midriff, staggering him until his back collided with the walkway's rail. She kicked out, attempting to punt him solidly in the balls and hopefully send him toppling over the edge, only for his hand to snap out and catch her foot. His other hand shot forward in a palm strike, slamming into her chest and hurling her down the corridor in the direction of the elevator.

She hit the floor and skidded to a stop at the door. Almost immediately, she was on her feet, palm hammering on the call button. The entrance slid open and she scrambled inside as he began to stride towards her, pace quickening when he saw that she had gained access. She watched him draw his fist back as she feverishly jabbed the button for the upper floor, heart leaping into her throat.

With a cheerful chime, the doors slid shut, moments before a fist-sized dent appeared in the metal. The car hummed upwards and Shak felt a surge of relief rush through her. She took a moment to congratulate herself on getting out alive, sliding her Colt back into its holster, and then glanced at the bulge in the steel.

"What a little bitch," she sneered, "he needs to just get it over with and find a hooker to murder."

It didn't take long to reach the upper level, the same one where she had separated from Chris. She also knew that it wouldn't be long before her blond stalker came after her, and she wanted to put as much distance between him, her and her friends as possible. As much as she couldn't respect his attitude or his actions, and jeered at him at every available opportunity, the fact remained that he was a dangerous monster, perhaps more lethal than anything she had seen before. That thought alone was enough to terrify her.

She walked out of the lift, and contemplated dragging one of the fallen zombies into the doorway so that it wouldn't close. Unfortunately, in her moment of hesitation, it hummed shut anyway. Instead, she decided just to not be around when he showed up.

Opposite the elevator was a tiger statue, the eyes of which had been made from precious gems. Her paycheque as a S.T.A.R.S member hadn't been too shabby, even if she had spent most of it on guns every month, but this place probably cost more than she would have ever made in her life. It had drawn her attention because it hadn't really fit with the aesthetic of the rest of the complex. When she'd tried to pry the jewels out, the ornament had rotated on some kind of turntable, revealing a stainless steel revolver set into the wall, which she'd happily stolen as well. With enough loot, she might have been able to make imprisonment a profitable enterprise.

She passed a rack of hazmat suits and a pile of bodies, neither of which earned a second glance, and passed out into the room beyond. This one was as out of place as the sculpture she had ransacked, looking almost like some kind of gallery than a room at a high-tech installation. At its centre, a woman carved from stone carried a heavy vase upon her shoulder, illuminated from various angles by lights on rails.

Paintings, both landscapes and portraits, lined the walls; some depicted notable, historical figures, none of whom were familiar to her, while others showed views of the countryside through the seasons. One in particular had caught her attention, hanging directly opposite the large double doors at one end of the room, given pride of place, alone upon that wall.

It looked almost like it was a picture of her, a glimpse into an alternate future, one where she had reached middle years and lived a much more carefree life. The woman had her rounded features, but appeared healthier and happier, and several degrees less deranged, primarily due to the lack of a facial scar. That was definitely a point in Shak's favour; as far as she was concerned, you couldn't get much sexier than bodily mutilation. Otherwise, it was almost her twin, right down to the green blouse she was wearing.

Beneath the painting was a bronze plaque that read: "In Memoriam of Lady Margaret Spencer - Sorely missed, her compassion was an example to us all".

It was a surreal experience to see her own image on the wall of her enemy's sanctuary. It made her wonder who exactly "Margaret Spencer" was and why, if she had been so compassionate and so missed, everyone in the corporation had turned out to be such a colossal arsehole. Still, she didn't really have the time to think about it, considering that one of said-arseholes was coming to kill her.

She started to debate her next course of action, whether it was better to return to where she had split up with Chris, or head into unknown territory. Neither option seemed appealing for evading Wesker; the first didn't lead her anywhere useful and the second might have been filled with monsters. But the debate evaporated when something exploded nearby, the ground shaking beneath her feet. Curiosity got the better of her, and she ran in the direction of the sound, kicking through the double doors and breaking the lock with a loud splintering sound.

Beyond was an immense and extravagant entrance hall, which actually managed to make the previous room suddenly seem less peculiar.

The first thing she noticed was the devastation that had been wrought to the staircase; the second was Chris, limping towards her.

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----

After the appearance of Alexia and her pet tentacles, Shak definitely made a welcome addition to the entrance hall's décor. His leg was still stiff with bruising, but he could move it and put his weight on it without it giving way on him; that was the main thing. Even if he couldn't run, he'd hobble as fast as he could to reunite with Claire and Steve, and get the hell away from that place.

"Shak; I found Claire," he called out to her, as he approached.

"That's great, Chris; we should leave, now," she stated flatly, rushing to meet him halfway. She looked tense, spooked, and all of a sudden he got the impression that something was very wrong.

He didn't have to wait long to find out what, either. A dark shape loomed out through the doorway that she had entered through, the shadow resolving into the form of Albert Wesker. The dark-haired male let out a curse and pushed his partner roughly to the side, sighting along the length of his shotgun and loosing a hail of shot in his direction. In the blink of an eye, the other man vanished, disappearing behind the door frame into the other room as the volley pulped one of the doors and blew it off its hinges.

His reaction was the same as the redhead's; they ran back towards the pillars that held aloft the balcony above, hoping to avoid their enemy's attention completely. He had a schedule to keep, just like last time; hopefully, he'd remember that and call of the search.

A spasm of pain rocketed up Chris's leg, causing it to fall slack, and he slumped to the marble floor, still in plain view of the open double doors. He felt a firm hand wrap around his bicep, and then Shak hauled him backwards into cover, her grip so tight that her claws bit through his clothing and into his flesh. He pushed his back flush to the column, keeping himself pressed against it with his good leg, hoping that the other would be strong enough to support him if he needed to run.

Wesker's footsteps followed them into the chamber, and he could almost hear his movements as he strode across the dust-smothered ground, pausing to survey the interior. Whatever Chris's emotions towards the Arklay clone, he could imagine his former superior's feelings being tenfold; this was where he had died, after all. Their stalker's eyes scanned the room, searching for them; he almost fancied he could tell exactly where his gaze was rooted at any one time.

He came nearer, and they edged warily around the pillar, keeping it between him and them. It took Chris a few moments to realise that he was holding his breath, but even then he didn't dare to let it out. While he couldn't be certain, he was almost sure that the blond already knew where they were, but the slightest hint of noise felt as though it would break the stalemate.

Wesker himself seemed to have no such concerns.

"I am disappointed in you, Chris. I had never considered you to be so craven as to eschew conflict; this behaviour is most unbecoming."

Chris bit his tongue; he knew a bait when he heard one, even if it did make him want to lunge out from his hiding place and punch his opponent's face around to the other side of his long head. The rebuttal burned on his tongue like acid, the fire in his blood leaping higher, burning for his attention, for his action. He wanted to send the other man to hell, where he belonged. It was the least that his fallen comrades in S.T.A.R.S deserved; it was the least that those still living could ask of him.

Shak squeezed his shoulder and he glanced up at her. With the slightest motion of her head, she nodded towards the gap behind the staircase where a passage would lead them around to the other side of the room. If Wesker followed them through that tunnel then they could double back to either of the doors. Getting away from him was the present problem; then he could start thinking about how to catch up with Claire.

He nodded back, pushing himself up into a standing position and bracing himself against the wall, ready to run.

On a silent count of three, he threw himself out from behind the pillar, only to find himself staring into the face of their enemy, waiting for them. Even as his arms swung up, bringing his shotgun to bear, Wesker forced it skywards and it erupted, spraying destruction into the empty air. He jerked back, vying with the other man for control of the weapon, but struggling, even against only one of the black-clad male's gloved hands.

His partner tackled Wesker from the side, evidently having circled around the column, realising that their escape route was blocked. She rammed her shoulder into his midriff, burying her claws to the hilt in his sternum, and carried him back several paces. Chris had already tried that move once before; it was like wrestling with a slab of granite. Unfortunately, before he could assist, his adversary released the shotgun and its heavy bulk snapped back, striking him stiffly in the ribs. He staggered, even as Shak slowed to a halt and a powerful roundhouse from the blond sent her slamming backwards into the pillar behind her.

The redhead dropped into a crouch, arms drawn up into a defensive pose even as her ally took aim again, the third individual's open stance practically inviting the violence that was to follow. The battle would be brutal and bloody, and it didn't seem like any of them had a problem with that.

Before they could make their move, however, the wall burst apart, concrete crumbling to dust as another of the tentacles emerged, streaking through the air between them. It whipped right, striking Wesker in the torso and throwing him backwards into the side of the grand, sweeping staircase, before sweeping left, slamming both Chris and Shak to the floor. It coiled in on itself, the bulb at its tip twitching as though it were glancing around. It seized on the lone male as he rose to his feet, coiling around him and lifting him into the air. His former subordinate gazed in awe as he was carried upwards, the immense limb shaking him back and forth.

Something gleamed in the light from the chandelier, and then Wesker plunged a blade deep into the writhing, pulsating mass. A cluster of overgrown ants fell away to the floor, unfolding and dissolving upon the carpet, moments before the feeler drew back and hurled him at the wall. He spun in mid-air in an effort to correct his landing, but struck hard against the stone; he salvaged the second part of his fall, twisting neatly and landing in a low crouch. He rose to his feet, sliding his knife back into the sheath on his armour, and turned his eyes up, locking them on the weaving collective.

It hovered for several moments, gauging him warily, and then thrust towards him with a speed that would have seen him impaled. He met it head on, driving his fist into its bloated end, bursting the head and sending dozens of the creatures tumbling to the ground. Its severed length whipped up, thrashing as though agonised, and then retreated, surging back into the hole through which it had originally emerged.

Chris watched the entire spectacle with fascination. He wondered exactly how strong Wesker really was, and how much it would take to finally put him down, once and for all.

Unfortunately, he wasn't given the time to consider it. His enemy started to speak, addressing someone on the staircase above, and it didn't take him long to figure out who.

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----

She stood upon the landing at the top of the stairway, regarding him coldly through piercing azure eyes, aloof and confident in her superiority. The fleeing tentacle forgotten, he straightened to his full, impressive height, lifting his hands to reassert the immaculate integrity of his straight, blond hair. He removed the sunglasses from the bridge of his nose and slid them neatly into a pocket on his tactical vest, before smoothing the front of his attire.

He allowed his eyes to meet her own, the glowing rings of burning colour circling his cat-like slits, the proof of his Godhood, fixing on her. This meeting, contrary to what she may have believed, was a meeting of equals, and he meant to make her aware of that.

"Lady Ashford," he greeted, favouring her with a respectful bow of his head as he approached the foot of the steps, "it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, at last. Our audience has been long overdue."

"And who, may I ask, are you?" Alexia asked coldly, staring down at him, almost as though the difference in height between them was a metaphor for the disparities in their status.

"My name is Albert Wesker," he informed her, feeling that it were only right to identify himself at her request, though he did not expect that it was of any consequence to her, "I am here on behalf of certain influential parties who wish to acquire your research and they have authorised me to offer you anything within their power to ensure your cooperation in this matter."

"Insolent fool," she chastised, haughty features remaining as stoic and neutral as ever they had been, as she glared down upon him, "I have transcended the need for your species. My research is none but my own, and you are not worthy to covet it."

He did not allow the amusement he felt to manifest on his features. "Much has changed in your absence, my lady," he responded, "your family name no longer commands the respect that it once did. Under the governance of your reclusive brother, the influence of your line has declined dramatically, even within the corporation that your grandfather established. The organisation that I represent, on the other hand, still holds you in the utmost esteem; they would assist you in the advancement of your research, provide you with funding, subjects and equipment. We would remain ever your humble servants."

She laughed icily, the noise devoid of humour and laden with condescension; it was a measured sound, intended purely to mock him. "You are already my humble servants," she stated, the chill in her voice growing ever more tangible as she spoke to him, "you simply have yet to realise it. Soon, my children will swarm across this world, inhabiting humanity at their will. None shall be spared; you shall all become my drones, serving only your Queen, serving only _me_. Just as the boy has become my soldier, so shall the rest of mankind share his fate."

"Such an ambition would surely require greater resources than are available in this isolated locale. As I have mentioned, my employers would be more than willing to offer you these resources so that you may bring your goal to fruition. In return for access to the Veronica strain, we would gladly pledge our allegiance to your cause."

Of course, that was not an entirely truthful assertion. While the Tricell Corporation would gladly support her endeavours, they would do so only while its consequences were financially viable. It was important to be seen as sympathetic to her aims, though there was, naturally, no profit to be made in assisting the delusional fancies of a madwoman. He saw no personally advantageous outcome in allowing her power to grow unchecked, particularly given that she had already outlined her design for humanity. In all honesty, Albert Wesker would much rather the world remain as it was.

And if she persisted in being so thoroughly uncooperative, he would simply need to seize her creation by force.

"Such hubris for one so weak," she scoffed, genuine amusement momentarily audible in her tone, though it did not become visible upon her smooth, porcelain-sculpted features, "how can you, a mere mortal, begin to comprehend what the Veronica virus represents, or what power it can yield?"

"Though you speak of power, Lady Ashford, T-Veronica's capabilities remain undocumented, and I have yet to see any indication of its superiority. All the same, the interests of my employer have been made very clear to me; either you will submit yourself to my custody peacefully, or I will appropriate the fruits of your research by more direct means."

"You would threaten me?" she asked, subtle incredulity and anger tainting her words, her slender frame and delicate appearance belying the strength of her voice, "you, one incapable of even recognising his own insignificance, would threaten the greatest and most powerful of the Ashford line? I will reduce you to naught but ash."

"I warn you, my lady; my patience for this folly is at an end," he responded, no longer prepared to indulge her pretension of dominance, electing instead to march towards her up the stairway.

It was indeed a pity that she had proven unwilling to heed the course of reason. Her reluctance reduced the efficiency of his assignment, but should not have come as a surprise. Brilliant minds tended towards obstinacy, particularly where those minds had been cosseted and pampered throughout their lives. In retrospect, it had perhaps been foolish to even consider that she might prove accommodating; much like William Birkin before her, she saw her creation as her sole property. That alone was reason enough, in her eyes, to spurn his proposal.

In the same manner as his former colleague, she would be made to surrender her virus or forfeit her life.

Wesker reached towards her, and then, quite unexpectedly, she burst into flames, a raging inferno exploding from her very flesh before his eyes. He recoiled, more as a result of disbelief than in an attempt to avoid the sudden heat, and backed slowly down the stairs as a corona of coruscating fire wreathed her body. The carpet beneath her feet withered and burned to nothing, leaving only bare concrete in a circle around her position.

Her extravagant clothing was seared away in an instant, their splendour, their monetary worth, no longer of any importance to her. The choker fastened around her neck snapped and fluttered to the floor, the jewel inset at its centre the only part of it that survived the conflagration. She stood, nude, within a swirling, warping haze of superheated air.

And then, as he looked on, she began to change.

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----


	8. Episode Eight: Monster's Ball

**Episode Eight: Monster's Ball**

The whirling maelstrom of flame spiralled and raged in a blazing shield around the body of Alexia Ashford. Her hair came alive, twisting and writhing like the tentacles of living matter that she controlled, the golden tresses entwining into thick, dark grey locks of flesh, framing her smooth features. Her bare flesh turned the colour of stone, hardening and solidifying in places to form natural armour, pebbled in texture, matching the hue of her new skin. The shell moved up her left leg, covering her groin, before extending across her stomach to her right side and over her chest, hiding her nudity in an instant. Lastly, it spread along her right arm, ending in a thick cuff at her wrist.

The fire swirled around her, constricting in ever tighter circles, until it began to die, seeming almost to seep into her pores and become one with her. She whipped her head upwards, drawing in a sharp breath through lips made new as the transformation came to its end, and locked glowing, scarlet eyes with the mutated orbs of her antagonist.

"That is _so_ fucking hot," Chris heard Shakahnna whisper behind him, and he looked back at her over his shoulder. She was watching the hostile standoff between their enemies with a ruddy glow in her cheeks; eventually, she exchanged a glance with him, her blush deepening. "The fire; must be really hot."

He turned his eyes back to the confrontation, watching his two superhuman adversaries stare one another down. Wesker seemed transfixed on the woman's monstrous new form; as far as his former subordinate was concerned, they deserved one another, just two more freaks to add to Umbrella's catalogue.

She descended the stairs, each step a measured act of grace, until she was a mere arm's length from the blond. Her hand drew back to strike and he was still, seemingly awaiting her attack. At the last moment, he jerked backwards, her palm whistling mere centimetres from his smooth features, and then, suddenly, he was airborne. He turned a full flip in the air and landed in a crouch at the bottom of the stairwell, his head snapping up and his eyes glowing red.

"I believe that a demonstration of your abilities is in order," he said, as he rose back to his feet, "let us see if your research is all that you have claimed it to be."

He began to climb towards her for a second time, only for her to give a casual wave of her right hand, liquid the colour and consistency of blood ejecting from the armoured sleeve wrapped around her arm. It ignited, fire leaping from the ground where it had landed like a napalm strike. At first, it seemed as though he would simply walk straight through the burning veil, but then he leapt to the side as his opponent jumped through the flames at him. She landed, with a barely audible thud, upon the carpet where he had previously stood, rounding on him even as he rolled back to his feet.

He became a blur, surging toward her with a speed that Chris could barely register, but in a split second his target had vanished, leaping high into the air and alighting neatly atop the balcony overhead. Wesker's eyes followed her upwards and then he dodged aside as she retaliated, sweeping her arm in a wide arc that loosed a cascade of the strange fluid across the lower tier. With the flames crackling to his back, he sprang upwards, reaching her level without seeming to even exert himself.

She stepped away from him as he advanced, drawing back her arm like a weapon primed to fire, but in the next instant one of the writhing insect masses burst forth from the ceiling. It reached down, entwining around the blond's midsection, carrying him up and away from its mistress. His blade shone once again, and with a single slash from the sharpened steel, he had cut himself free a second time. The tentacle shed its wounded tissue, and its captive with it, who dropped neatly to the marble below.

Even as he recovered himself, Alexia hopped to the ground beside him, and as he turned to confront her she threw her liquid fire into his face. Though he covered his head with his arms, the inferno engulfed his upper body entirely and he reeled backwards. Above him, a second of the woman's hive limbs exploded from the wall and sawed through the chain holding aloft the immense chandelier. It fell towards him and, at the last moment, he glanced upward, vaulting out of the way as it smashed down.

Pristine tear drops of polished crystal scattered through the air, a rain of shimmering shrapnel slicing into his skin and that of his opponent, though neither of them seemed fazed. Instead, their eyes met over the fallen wreckage, faces weeping from a dozen delicate lacerations that pursed shut, leaving only minute trails of blood upon their flawless skin. The last vestiges of his burns, and the charred patches in his hair, also vanished; only the damage to his clothing revealed that he had been injured at all.

Frankly, Chris would have been quite happy to see them destroy one another, but he watched their conflict with a measure of apprehension. Something had to give eventually; one of them was going to die and that would leave the survivor for him and Shak. Whether it would be the male, with his greater martial experience and apparent immortality, or the woman, with her otherworldly power and fifteen-year fusion with her virus, remained to be seen.

Wesker transformed into a shadow yet again, but Alexia tossed her head back contemptuously, spreading her burning venom across the ground in front of him and raising a wall of flame. In response, he veered, his superhuman speed carrying him against the pull of gravity and up the wall. The Queen cast fire at him, but he ran through it, racing past the corner of the room without breaking stride, before leaping into a dive, his right fist aimed at her head.

She stepped aside, but staggered when his elbow slammed into her face, hurling yet another cascade after him. He let out a grunt of pain as he rolled to his feet, sweeping the flaming secretion from his arms and torso. Even once he had rid himself of it, however, smoke continued to rise from his shoulders and head. For her part, a bead of crimson appeared at the corner of her lips, true blood rather than the liquid she had been using as her weapon. She wiped it away with the reverse of her hand, eyes narrowing when she saw it staining her fingers, as though she were more affronted than pained.

Chris wondered if she had ever bled unwillingly in her life before that moment; the expression on her face said that she hadn't, and that there would be hell to pay.

Sure enough, she drew back her arm once more and pitched it forward, a blazing streak erupting from her fleshy sleeve. His eyes widened when he saw the inferno racing towards him and he threw himself to the side, a heavy thud behind him telling him that Shak had done the same thing. Wesker also dodged aside, but his head snapped around upon hearing the two of them hit the floor. They locked eyes, pure blue sapphires meeting the tainted gaze of a demon in human skin.

Neither of them spoke a word; they didn't have time for any dialogue before Alexia came at them like the spirit of vengeance itself, hand aflame and eyes ablaze.

The blond dodged her attack, her attempts at genuine combat clumsy in comparison with his trained grace, and drove his shin into her stomach with a hard roundhouse, doubling her over. An axe blow to her back drove her to her knees for the briefest of moments, only for her to rise, sweeping her arm up in a vertical backhand that punched him off his feet and into the air. He flew backwards and struck the wall, before falling to earth, landing on his feet and collapsing into a crouch.

The transformed female ignored him, her focus switching smoothly to the two humans. Chris took a step back, mind racing through his options. The intelligent course of action would have been to retreat through the open doors and leave the two of them to fight it out. Unfortunately, he still wasn't sure how he was going to find Claire if he went in any direction other than forward, and even if he did fall back now, the fight with one or both of them was inevitable. Now was as good a time as any.

He levelled the shotgun at her, racking the slide and blasting her, a hail of shot punching into her torso, a hole the size of a fist appearing on her stony chest plate. Blood gushed down her front and she staggered, body rocking. But the glare that had appeared on her features remained, stoic and unmoving. Even as he chambered another round, her flesh melted closed around her injury and she continued to move towards him with deadly focus. He took another step back, his weapon punching a second gaping wound in her torso, before she closed the distance and grabbed for him.

Shakahnna shunted him to the side, ramming her shoulder into his and knocking him away. His weak leg gave out beneath him and dropped him onto his face on the marble, his firearm jamming stiffly into his ribs and momentarily stealing his breath away. He looked up in time to see the redhead level her Colt at point blank range, emptying the clip into Alexia's upper body. Each bullet hammered her backwards, thick, crimson fluid rolling out from the ruptures in her body.

When the pistol snapped empty, their opponent retaliated, swinging her arm in a backhand that would have decapitated the human where she stood. Fortunately, though her strength and speed were most likely beyond even the former S.T.A.R.S Captain's, she wasn't a soldier or a seasoned fighter, and that inexperience gave them the advantage. The blow sailed clean over Shak's head as she ducked, before lashing back with a clawed uppercut that sliced through the monster's features, cleaving four parallel gashes in her face.

Shak danced aside as Chris rose to his good knee, bringing his shotgun to bear yet again and shooting her full in the stomach. Before either of them could capitalise, however, Wesker returned to the fray, wrapping a hand around her throat, looming over her by almost a full foot. To see them now was to see Alexia as a victim, a helpless target of his impossible power, even with her mutated exterior. But appearances could be deceiving.

Affronted at his touch, she reared back, slapping away his grip with the sound of fracturing bones, before thrusting her hands forward, shoving him solidly in the chest. He skidded backwards, colliding with the wall and loosening several paintings, which clattered to the floor around him.

"Chris!" Shak yelled, distracting him from the confrontation to see her standing, holding her unloaded Colt, "I'm out!"

He nodded, reaching to his harness and grabbing one of the machine-pistols, throwing it to her. She caught it clumsily, but wasted no time in pointing it at Alexia and spraying bullets with gay abandon in her direction. Their enemy responded by leaping upwards, turning a smooth flip in the air, before landing softly at the middle of the staircase. The bolt of Shak's weapon clicked dry for a second time, and Chris quickly pushed himself back to his feet, giving chase. He fired at her, turning one side of the wooden handrail into sawdust as she sprang backwards, landing higher still.

He made to follow her, only to nearly crash into Wesker as they both attempted to climb the steps at once. Reacting instinctively, his target changed in an instant, the barrel of his shotgun centring on the other man's head, even as he too reared back, hand straight in preparation for a spearing strike. Before either of them could move, however, the tentacle that had been hovering overhead shot down between them. The blond reacted more quickly than he could, flipping backwards and away from the searching limb, leaving it to seize him around the midriff and pluck him from the ground.

It clamped down around his waist, grinding against his bones, and he struggled against it, thrashing in its grip. Fortunately, his hands were still free, and he brought his weapon around, blowing a hole through the fleshy, pulsating mass. Insect corpses fell away around him, dying as the blast tore them to pieces, and then he was slipping out of its grasp, feet treading the empty air beneath him. It unlaced from his body, letting him drop, and he let out a yell as he plummeted.

He slammed into something softer than the floor and then slumped to the ground on top of it. It took him a few moments to realise that he had landed on Shakahnna, who had apparently dove underneath him in an attempt to catch him. They exchanged a glance and he shot her a grateful thumb up, which she returned in kind.

Ever the opportunist, Wesker made good the distraction and strode forwards, approaching Alexia and ascending the staircase once more. She whipped her hand forward, the crimson fluid spraying forth in an arc, but he lifted his arm, catching the deluge aimed at his head on the length of his forearm. Before it could ignite, he cast his arm down, throwing off the secretion and letting it burn upon the stairs in his wake.

As he reached the apex of the stairway, where his prize stood, aloof and defiant, two thin tendrils whipped out, curling around his arms, ensnaring them from wrist to shoulder. He fought against them for a moment, and then they pulled him forward, jerking him to his knees before their mistress. He looked up at her from his forced reverence, eyes flashing furiously, and then he rose, wrenching up on the living shackles with thick, muscular arms, tearing them apart with his power. They shrivelled and died as he sundered them, and still he approached, undeterred, letting their dead weight fall from him.

He had almost reached her when the family portrait behind her bulged outwards, the image of three proud Ashfords bursting open to reveal yet another feeler. It shot over her head with such velocity that its slipstream caused her fleshy tresses to waver. Curling in on itself, it flicked out, catching him full in the stomach and swatting him back down the stairs. Alexia watched him tumble to the floor with a faint sense of amusement playing across her grotesque features.

Rolling to a halt at the base of the stairway, he ended his descent in a crouch, glaring up at her. The tentacle weaved, as though watching him, and then lunged down towards him. In that moment, he sidestepped neatly, letting it slam down beside him, and charged up the stairs, his dark form becoming a streak of shadow. With a wave of her hand, she sowed a wall of flame before him, but he powered through it, leaving a ghost of himself in the inferno that wavered shut in his wake.

Before he could close with his target, however, one of the massive hive limbs surged down from above, demolishing a huge portion of the ceiling as it did. It engulfed Alexia, stretching itself around her and protecting her from harm, and then whipped upwards, carrying the Queen away with it. Wesker came to the top of his climb, eyes following the fleeing mass as it withdrew into the roof.

"Useless cunt," the redhead grumbled, as Chris helped her back to her feet, lifting her grenade gun and sighting along the barrel at the remaining tentacle as it rose above them.

She pulled the trigger, and the capsule climbed in a slow arc, before exploding against its head, bursting in a spray of shrapnel and dying bodies. Its stump wavered in the air and then shot back, streaking past the blond as he descended the stairs and vanishing through the hole in the portrait, where it had first appeared. The two humans exchanged a glance and then hurried to the base of the stairwell as their remaining enemy looked back at them.

His clothes were smouldering and his hair was singed, a thin trail of smoke drifting from his body. Pink skin, licked raw by the flames, paled back to its original shade even as they watched.

"Rest assured that we shall have our reckoning," he insisted, lifting his arm and aiming a finger at the dark-haired male.

"Count on it," Chris replied, eyes locking with those of his nemesis, and then the other man turned away, leaping to the uppermost landing in a single bound and vanishing through the door above.

"Fucking cunts," Shak growled, from beside him, "running away and stealing all my fucking points. What a pair of fucking pussies."

"No use crying about it now," he pointed out, "we have to keep going. If she came back for us then it means Claire and Steve might be in trouble. We need to find them, quick."

They hurried up the stairs, boots scattering blackened shreds of once-luxurious material behind them, until they reached the midpoint of the staircase and the hole that the tentacle had created. Beyond was a passage, resplendent with plush carpet and paintings lining the walls, just as the entrance hall had once been. The redhead looked down at what remained of the image of the Ashford twins and their father, kicking a piece with her foot. It rolled over to reveal an ovular indentation, superimposed over a portrayal of the young Alexia's slender neck.

"Guess we know what the jewels were for," she said.

"Yeah, and it also means we know what that thing was in the spider's lair," he responded, spying the image of a man's face amid the debris, his ear overlaid with a similar hollow.

A trickle of pulverised stone rained down from the decimated ceiling, catching his attention. Above, through the fissure that the hive limb had burst out from, he glimpsed something that looked almost like sand, hardened until impenetrable. It pulsated, as though something was moving inside it.

"What the hell is that?" he asked.

"It looks kind of like the hive I found in the basement," she replied, before aiming a finger at the other holes that Alexia's subjects had made, "it's all over the fucking place. They must have been building it the whole time she was asleep, to protect her. Fifteen fucking years of infestation. The walls must be crawling with them; no wonder there are so many of those fucking tentacles."

"That's just another reason why we won't be leaving this place standing. Facilities like this always have a self-destruct built in, just like Rockfort. Umbrella don't like it when their dirty secrets get out."

"Better safe than sorry, right? You heard what she said; she's going to use her fucking ants to take over the world or something. We need to make sure they all get blown up, whether there's a working self-destruct or not."

He gave a wry smile. "What did you have in mind?"

"I seen an armoury on a map somewhere; I think its close. I'll look to see if they have enough explosives to level the place, and maybe arm up while I'm there. I'm feeling a little light."

"Shak, if you wanted to go and raid the armoury for guns then you just had to say so."

"No, no; believe it or not, I do really want to find something to blow this place up with," she insisted, before handing him back the empty T.M.P that she was clutching, "here, this is yours, and I found this for you too. It's lower calibre than I'm used to."

She reached to her belt and withdrew a Colt Python revolver; he'd found a similar model in the Spencer Estate itself, and the weight of it felt familiar and reassuring. As he recalled, that night had ended with Wesker dead, three of his friends alive and the ultimate abomination, the Tyrant, blown to pieces. He was hoping for a repeat performance.

"Thanks; you going to be okay with just that?" he asked her, slipping the new weapon into his own belt and nodding at the grenade gun still clutched in her hands.

"Please; I've got more than enough little cans of fun to last me to the armoury and back."

"What about Wesker? And Alexia; they're still out there, somewhere."

"Oh yeah; I'm fucking counting on it," she grinned, flexing her clawed fingers, before running her tongue along the length of one of the blades, "Ho-bag's worth at least fifty points on the League Table, and Cock-breath's in dire need of a knacker-ectomy. And I'm going to be the one to give it to him. You go on ahead and find Claire and Steve; I'll catch up later. But you'd better not leave without me, Redfield, or I'm going to kick you in the nuts, you hear me?"

"Loud and clear," he told her, snapping off a quick salute, which she returned in kind, flicking her knives in his direction as she moved to walk back down the steps.

He watched her leave, noting the stiffness of her movements, the damage that the bruising no doubt covering her body had done to her manoeuvrability. Her face had been a picture of abuse, though even the open lacerations and thick swelling had done nothing to detract from the characteristic upward quirk at the corner of her lips. There had been a glaze to her eyes though, giving her a strangely detached intensity. Considering how much she had been through, he imagined it was to be expected.

In truth, he probably didn't look much healthier. His open wounds were stinging from the atomised concrete that had settled in them, and his knee was throbbing worse than before. He felt like hell, but the mission wasn't done yet; there'd be time to rest and recuperate once he'd kept his promise to Claire.

One thing was for sure. Nothing - not their injuries, not Wesker, not Alexia, not Umbrella's assortment of freaks - was going to stop either of them from doing their duty and living through that day.

"Don't worry, sis'," he said, lifting his good leg and kicking through what remained of the rubble between him and the hidden corridor, "I'm coming."

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----

The neglected splendour of the mansion beneath the Antarctic facility gave way to cold, dank stone corridors. The chill in the air turned her breath to mist and made her aching bones throb beneath her battered flesh, but she pushed on. She clasped Chris's Glock tightly between her hands, her first line of defence as she moved through the unknown passages. Steve was here somewhere; of that, she was certain. As for Alexia, she hadn't heard so much as an insane cackle from the other woman since their confrontation in the entrance hall.

She had emerged into what looked like a prison, cages built into the very walls. In the darkness beyond the iron bars, she could hear breathing, low, groaning exhalations issuing from slack lips. As she passed, shambling figures stumbled out of the shadows, throwing themselves limply against the bars, scrabbling desperately in her direction with rot-crusted hands. She jumped back instinctively, a shiver of revulsion rolling down her spine like a trickle of ice water.

To become a zombie was to become a slave to the virus, to have your thoughts and feelings replaced by dulled aggression and endless appetite; she'd rather die than let it take her. To be trapped in a festering husk, feeding on other human beings, waiting only for the merciful moment when your body finally fell apart, or another person blew your infected brain to pieces. It was no way to live, if there was even anything still living behind those vacant eyes.

But they were simple creatures, at least, and their motives were pure - just hunger. They didn't act out of malice or spite or revenge the way humans did; they didn't even think about their actions. Only instinct remained, futile and perverted, but without cruelty or self-righteous justification.

She still hated zombies - that hadn't changed, nor would it - but her ordeal had taught her that there were some people she hated more.

She passed the cells, with their dead occupants and rancid stench of decay, and focused instead on the tunnel's end, where a huge barred gate blocked the way. She glimpsed a figure in the room beyond, but she was too far to see who it was; she quickened her pace, her desperation to find Steve urging her into a run. Her heart hammered in her chest as she reached the entrance to what looked essentially like a dungeon. Suits of armour stood to stiff attention around the chamber, flanking a wide, stone pillar that filled the centre of the room and extended up through the collapsed ceiling. Rubble that resembled a collapsed stairway lay strewn across the floor.

Directly opposite the doorway was the shape she had seen, limbs shackled and head bowed, the thick, wooden haft of an immense halberd locked across its chest. She had found him.

"Steve!" she called out, gripping the portcullis between them with her free hand.

She cast around for any way to get through, but before she had found anything that even looked like it might work, she heard the sound of chains rattling and the gate rose on some unseen mechanism. She wasn't stupid; she knew that it was Alexia's doing, but she needed Steve to be okay. In that instant, nothing else mattered.

She hurried forward, across the open space between them, and threw her arms around his neck, gripping him tightly and drawing in a deep, shaking breath of relief. After the snowmobile had crashed, she had half-expected them to die, two frostbitten statues clinging to one another in the howling blizzard outside. Instead, their lunatic hostess had saved them. Even if it was some cruel scheme to get revenge for the death of her brother, she had given them one more moment together. She was thankful for that, at least.

"Hey Claire," he greeted weakly, his lips brushing at the side of her ear, "long time, no see."

She untangled herself from him, a smile appearing unbidden on her lips at the same time as tears started to sting the corners of her eyes. He tried to smile back, but could only manage it for a second before his expression curled into a grimace instead.

From what she could see, he was suffering far worse than she was; his skin was pale and clammy, but freezing cold. Though she was standing directly in front of him, his eyes didn't seem to be able to focus on her. His exposed skin was a patchwork of bruising, parts of his face swollen and purple, or caked in dried blood from thin lacerations. A strip of crimson ran across the front of his shirt, the flesh rubbed raw by the handle of the axe, and his shackles were cutting into his skin. Her hand brushed a jellied lump of congealed gore stopping up his left ear. All told, he looked like hell.

"Oh God, Steve; what did she do to you?"

"She put one of her ants on me, and it ... got into my head. Hurt like hell; I thought my skull was going to explode. I ... think she's trying to turn me into one of her drones. She's experimenting ... wanting to see if I'll follow her orders."

"You can fight it; I know you can," she told him, running her hands tenderly over his cheeks, locking tear-filled eyes with him, "Chris came, just like I told you he would. He's going to get us both out of here. Please, just stay with me a little longer while I get you free."

"I can't..." he grunted, his breath hitching, the pace quickening, becoming ragged and shallow, as though he were in absolute agony, "it's already starting. I can hear her ... inside of my head. She wants me to kill you, but ... I _won't_ do it. You've got to go, Claire; go back to your brother and get out of here, before it's too late."

"I'm not leaving you!"

"Get away from me!" he begged, "please, you have to go; I don't want to hurt you. Claire, please, don't let me hurt you! _Don't let me! _"

His voice cracked, turning into a monstrous roar, his right arm bursting free of its shackle and slamming her off her feet. She flew backwards and landed hard on the stone floor, both of them falling silent in an instant. Pushing herself up on grazed arms, she looked on in horror as his freed hand distended, muscles bulging sickly beneath the skin. Sinew turned purple by the ravages of the virus split his flesh, blood spilling down his arm and spraying onto the floor, the noise of its tearing reaching even her ears. Each moment of the transformation drew a new gasp of pain from his open mouth.

And then he started to scream, clenching his teeth against the anguish and clamping his eyes shut, tears breaking and rolling freely down his cheeks. He clutched at his stomach as though his insides were churning and then, before her very eyes, he started to change.

His restraints buckled and fell away as his limbs wrenched free, each of them swelling. His skin burst with the building pressure, its texture turning rough and scaly, and a putrescent shade of green in hue. Spikes of bone pushed out, growing from his left shoulder and back; they tore through his clothing, before his expanding musculature ripped them to shreds. Gnarled, mutated hands took hold of the halberd's wooden haft, the newfound strength of his huge arms easily pulling the weapon free. His boyish features warped, eye sockets sinking, vicious fangs pushing out from behind his lips, giving him a feral, terrifying look.

Warped eyes, glimmering, crimson voids, locked on her as he rose from his seat, his gaze devoid of reason or individual thought. Neither man nor animal, he was guided now only by Alexia's malicious hive mind. He towered over her, a full two feet taller than he had originally been, a hulking, misshapen beast, clutching the immense axe and glaring down at her.

He stepped forward, snapping her out of her horrified reverie, and lifted the blade aloft. With a sharp cry, she scrambled backwards as it cleaved downwards, hammering into the floor where she had been lying. The gate behind her fell closed with a clatter that shook the ground and she knew that she was trapped, trapped with a monster that was no longer the young man she had fought, and survived, with.

He came at her again and she leapt to her feet, scrambling away as he smashed apart the flagstones in her wake. Shooting a glance over her shoulder, she saw him swinging for her and ducked, landing on her hands and knees as the halberd whistled over head and shattered an empty suit of armour. In a moment, she was up on her feet again and racing away, weak legs pumping and aching lungs sucking in oxygen for yet another battle. She reached the wall opposite, turning on her heel, levelling the Glock at him and blinking tears out of her eyes as he stalked towards her.

"Don't make me do this," she pleaded under her breath, but he didn't heed her, breaking into a lumbering charge and letting out a furious bellow.

She sighted along the barrel of her handgun, squeezing one eye shut, desperate to make her shots count, and fired. Her bullets tore into the grotesque flesh of his chest, leaving bloody welts in his torso, but he didn't even seem to feel the pain, driven by the Queen's will. This wasn't Steve. He had begged her not to let him hurt her; if there was any part of him left inside, he was fighting with all that he was worth. She owed him the same, to give her all to ensure that he wasn't responsible for her death.

As he bore down on her, she threw herself aside, landing stiffly on the stone as his axe decimated the wall where she had been standing. Rolling over onto her back, she fired again, hot metal bursting his kneecap, exploding the cartilage in the joint. Even if he didn't feel it, the wound staggered him, and she took the opportunity to run once again. There was nothing to gain from fighting with him, and even fleeing only seemed to be delaying the inevitable, but she didn't know what else to do.

She crossed close to the pillar where Steve had been shackled, heard his heavy footsteps pursuing her, and cast around for something, anything, that she could use to subdue him, even for a moment. Glancing upwards, she saw the remains of a shattered staircase spiralling around the central pillar, rising to the level above. In an instant, her mind was made up; she jammed the Glock into her waistband and jumped, wrapping her hands around a length of chain that was dangling from the wall.

She set her soles against the stone and began to climb towards a shattered platform almost ten feet above the ground. Her arms were burning after seconds, but she reached the landing, hauling herself up and away from the creature pursuing her. It reached the foot of the wall and swung its axe up at her, narrowly missing her legs as she scrambled clear. Relentless, it clambered after her, using the halberd lodged in the wall as a handhold. Its clawed fingers scrabbled for her, trying to grab her and pull her down, but she swung around, aiming her pistol down into its malformed face.

A slug impacted on the bridge of its nose, punching clean through its face and knocking it backwards. Its talons gouged into the stone, stopping it from sliding to the ground below, and in an instant it was powering towards her again, blood streaming down its flat features. She turned and flung herself away from its grasping hands, landing on a broken segment of stairway above.

It growled as it gave chase, leaving her in no doubt that it was directly behind her, and she scrambled higher, throwing her arms up and catching hold of the next landing. She could hear loose stones knocked crashing to the floor so many metres below by the monster's huge frame and careless pursuit, and knew that if she fell now she would die on impact. Shutting out the thoughts of failure, she pulled herself up, body protesting as she struggled to get higher still.

Through the broken remnants of the spiral staircase blocking her view, she could see a metal cover in the ceiling, at the top of a ladder. It would probably take her out of a dungeon and hopefully give her time enough to think about what she could do next. She only hoped she could reach it.

Her body pulsed with fresh adrenaline as she ran up what remained of a broken section of stairway, before leaping to the next platform, narrowly avoiding the beast's hand as it snatched at her feet. The stone gave way beneath her weight, almost sending her toppling backwards and falling into the fatal embrace of her pursuer, or to the unforgiving ground far below. She wobbled, letting out a shocked cry, before seizing a torch bracket bolted to the wall, her heart hammering in her chest as she clung to it. It took her several seconds to regain her composure enough to start climbing again, and by then the creature had come into sight again.

It reached out for her from below, claws poised to rend her flesh, but she fired down at it again, her bullets knocking away its searching hand, and peppering its head and shoulders. It lost its footing, roaring furiously and tearing at everything in reach as it tumbled back down through the chasm they had climbed. Its struggling tore apart the ledge she was standing on and she fell too, catching her perch beneath her forearms. Her jaw rebounded from the stone and her teeth punched holes in the tongue, blood welling up in her mouth, but she ignored the pain, pulling herself up and scaling the wall again.

She dragged herself up onto the highest landing, the one that began the ladder that would lead her to her exit. Ignoring her body's protests, she clambered up, cursing to herself when her feet slipped on a rung, but otherwise not pausing for even a moment. Her mind was racing; she needed to do something, find some way to rescue Steve, but she could only think of one thing. If Alexia was the Queen then that meant her mind controlled the hive; if she died then that control was gone. It would be a small measure of justice for the crimes she had committed.

Claire was beginning to understand the reason why Shak smiled when she killed. It was the satisfaction of a just murder, the knowledge that a dangerous, perhaps even evil, presence had been removed from a society filled with innocents that didn't deserve to suffer. Innocents like Steve.

She reached the top of the ladder and pushed aside the metal cover, climbing into the dank, dark room above. It didn't take her long to realise that there was no escape, no other exits; just a shadowy, concrete cell, a tomb. She yelled out in defiance, slamming her fist into the wall, turning back and forth, peering into every darkened corner, desperate for a way out. Beneath, she could hear the monster that had once been Steve rampaging, bellowing incessantly, growing nearer.

The floor shook as her former partner clambered up towards her, before a huge, misshapen arm reached up through the hole. Its body was too big to fit through the opening, but it clawed at her all the same. She sank into the corner, shrinking away from it, lashing out with her foot when it strayed too close and clutching her handgun to her chest. It wanted to kill her, to destroy her, so badly that it sounded almost like it were in pain; she couldn't conceive of such absolute hatred. The thought of that emotion filling a person she felt for, perhaps even loved in a sense, was enough to bring her to tears.

She saw its gnarled features glaring up at her from below and she locked eyes with it, him, pleading wordlessly for him to remember her, to remember the man he used to be. If he understood, he didn't give any suggestion of it, and so she clamped her eyes shut instead, letting her own memories surface. She wanted, more than anything, to hear his real voice and see his true face, instead of the mockery they had turned into, all because of the T-Veronica virus.

She didn't want it to end like this, for either of them.

It took her a few moments to realise that Steve had fallen silent and, when she looked for him, she found that he had disappeared. She hesitated for a few moments, wondering if she dared to hope that something had happened to save them both. Eventually, she crawled forwards, looking down through the hatch.

One of Alexia's hive limbs lunged up at her, shoving her hard in the midriff and knocking her onto her back, where it coiled around her stomach and dragged her towards the opening. She screamed out a denial, clawing at the smooth concrete beneath her as she was pulled down, until her fingernails chipped and broke apart painfully. She brought the pistol around and fired at the tentacle, her bullets exploding wetly on its mass, but it ignored the damage, and she was helpless as it hauled her out through the hole.

She felt herself tumble through the air, held tightly by the feeler, her gun jerked out of her hands by the inertia and sent tumbling to the floor below. At some point, the cut in her hairline that she had suffered from the snowmobile crash had split open, and now her right eye was filmed with red. She tried to blink the blood away as the crumbled staircase passed by, before she emerged back into the lower chamber. Groaning, she lifted her head, only to see Steve stalking towards her once again, a new halberd gripped in his deformed hands. She struggled vainly, trying to push her slimy captor away, her legs kicking feebly in the air, all the while staring at her one-time companion with pleading, tear-filled eyes.

A ripple ran through the mass of the insects surrounding her, making them involuntarily tighten around her waist. She could tell, almost instinctively, that it was Alexia ordering her execution, and Steve lifted his axe to obey. His crimson eyes locked with her own cobalt orbs and, for a briefest of moments, she saw a flicker of indecision, a sudden flash of hesitation that made her heart skip a beat.

The blade came down and then she was falling, dropping to the stone below, the tentacle loosening and falling apart, insects dying as they were severed from their collective. The part that remained reared back, putrid gore spraying from its wounded end, before it lunged for her protector. It impaled him through the stomach, hitting him with such force that it threw his limp body backwards into the column where he had first been chained. The halberd's blade shattered into pieces against the stone.

Scrabbling in the rubble on the floor, she snatched up her Glock, drawing a bead on the feeler and fired, her bullets tearing into it. It swung at her, slapping her hard off her feet and sending her slamming into the wall near where her partner lay. The impact made her right arm spasm and then go limp, slack fingers letting the handgun fall involuntarily. Even as she slid to the ground beside Steve, her upper arm was already beginning to turn stiff and purple with bruising and she was certain that it was broken.

She picked up her pistol once again, this time in her left hand, clutching her paralysed and wounded arm to her chest. The limb wavered uncertainly, as though it were watching her, and then she pulled the trigger, the dry snap telling her that the chamber was empty. She sagged, letting the gun drop; it seemed to understand the significance of that and, still bleeding profusely from its severed end, it withdrew, vanishing from sight.

She dragged herself painfully over to where Steve was lying; he had begun to shrink, his muscles deflating beneath his skin, though the splits their sudden growth had caused remained. His flesh lost its colour, turning ashen, and the spines piercing his body receded, leaving only ragged holes in their wake. His features returned to normal, bone structure sinking back into place.

But the cluster of pockmarks on his chest, face and shoulders, as well as his shattered kneecap and the hole in his hand, remained. The virus had healed them; they weren't fatal, but he couldn't regenerate the killing blow, the hole through his gut, now that it had left him.

He looked up at her, his eyes still deep red, his wounded hand reaching out for her weakly. She placed her good hand against his face, cupping his cheek, and let him brush her own with his searching fingers. A blood-drenched mass crawled out of his ear, flopping to the stone and unfolding, revealing itself to be an insect large enough to fit in her palm; it died. His eyelids fluttered shut, and for a moment she thought that he had done the same.

"Steve..." she whispered, trembling with sudden fear.

"Sometimes, some things are worth dying for," he told her, his words carried on little more than a breath, "I didn't know what that was until I met you. Please ... don't die here, Claire... I want you to go ... with your brother ... and I want you to remember ... that I..."

His voice failed, but she watched his lips move, tracing the two words that pierced her heart and made her ache inside. A stab of pain through her chest stole her breath away, as his hand fell from her face, landing atop his torn stomach.

"I love you too," she said, and then she started to cry once again, but this time louder and longer and harder than she had ever cried before.

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----


	9. Episode Nine: The End

**Episode Nine: The End**

She didn't know how long she spent, cradling Steve's lifeless body. Eventually, her tears dried up, leaving her eyes puffy and inflamed, but her body still shook, trembling with grief that she could not suppress. She removed her jacket and lay it over his naked form, covering the gaping wound in his stomach that had claimed his life. She couldn't bear to see him like that, so compromised, so broken, and all because he had tried to save her. The idea of an act so pure, so selfless, being punished so mercilessly, made her angry, angry at Alexia, angry at the corporation that had nurtured her madness.

Clasping the hand of the young man she had loved, she vowed, right there and then, that she would see them fall. Umbrella, and the insanity they sponsored, would pay.

Time passed unnoticed as she knelt upon the floor, the head of her companion resting in her lap, the fingers of her left hand, her good hand, curled around his. Her other arm was paralysed, stiff with bruising from shoulder to fingertips; even trying to move it hurt, sending waves of agonising pinpricks rolling along her muscles. She had wiped away the majority of the blood on her face, but it still stuck to her forehead in a sticky, rust-coloured stain. Her jaw still ached, but it was a negligible pain in comparison with the fatigue and hurt wracking her entire frame.

It wasn't until she heard the sound of footsteps, heavy boots drumming rhythmically in the corridor beyond the barred gate, that she realised how long she had been there. She looked up, just in time to see Chris appear at the dungeon's entrance. His eyes found her quickly and he called her name, one muscular arm reaching through towards her. Gently, reverentially, she lay Steve's head back, letting him rest on the floor, before standing up awkwardly and hurrying over to her brother, sparing the boy one last, fleeting glance as she ran.

He pulled her into a tight embrace, hampered by the metal bars between them. She sagged against him, eyes closing as she savoured his warmth. She had felt the cold and stillness of death for too long, and craved the touch of another living human being. He was a comforting and familiar presence, and had been throughout her life.

Even now, covered in the ichor of a hundred abominations, smelling of grime and sweat, she caught his scent, the one that she had long ago come to associate with him. It reminded her of old times, before Raccoon City, before Umbrella, when she would meet him at the airport after months apart and wrap him in her arms. It reminded her of days spent doing everything together, hating the thought of him going away, but counting the days until his next visit. She needed those cherished memories now more than ever. Now, just like then, her brother was here for her.

"Claire; you're hurt," he pointed out, no doubt noticing the way she held her crippled arm tight to her stomach, "what happened?"

"Alexia," she replied bitterly, unable to keep the anger out of her voice as she spoke, "she happened."

"What about Steve?" he asked, gloved hand stroking the back of her head lightly, soothingly.

"Dead," she acknowledged, and at that he gripped tighter, though she was already beyond crying, "she tried to turn him into some kind of monster, but he fought back. She killed him right in front of me."

"I'm sorry, Claire," he said, and she had no problem believing that he meant it, with all his heart, "I don't see any way to get you out of here right now, but Shak's coming back with some real firepower. I'm sure she can get you free. I need to go and find a way to stop Alexia, or her hive's going to spread across the entire planet."

"You don't need to tell me, Chris," she asserted, detaching from him so that she could show him the earnestness in her eyes, "I know we need to stop her. Just make me one last promise; finish this. Don't let what happened to Steve happen to _anyone_ else."

"I won't," he told her, returning her intensity tenfold, in the way that only he could, his affirmation making her trust, making her _believe_, his words, "I promise."

"You have to come back to me," she reminded him, "we're getting out of here together; you promised me that too, remember? I can't lose you as well."

"Don't worry. I've come this far; I'm not going to give up the ghost that easy."

He clasped her shoulder, giving it one last, reassuring squeeze, and then he turned, walking back along the corridor in search of the exit that would lead him to his goal. She noticed the hitch in his stride, the limp betraying the damage to his leg that he had tried his best to hide. She didn't try to stop him; she knew him, and knew that he knew himself. If he was going on alone then he could handle it. Her brother wasn't an idiot. Besides, he had promised her, and he wasn't a liar either.

She hated being trapped, unable to help, and she hated being injured. It made her feel weak and vulnerable, and she hated that even more, but at least she could rely on Chris to pick up the slack. She stared after him for a few more moments, watching as he vanished into an adjoining passage.

"Good luck," she muttered; even if she did have the utmost faith in his abilities, a little fortune never hurt.

She walked back to where Steve was lying, kneeling down beside him and gently running her hand along his cold cheek. It suddenly seemed so much more devoid of warmth after her embrace with Chris. She sat down upon the stone in silence, watching over him. Even if his body was no more him than the monster she had fought, she still wanted just to be with him, for a few minutes more, at least.

All she could do was wait for either Chris or Shak to come back for her; with her body in its current state of disrepair, and with the dungeon sealed, there wasn't really anything else to do.

And so she waited, until at last she heard a voice, but not one that she recognised, nor one that brought her any comfort. When she heard it, suddenly she was glad that her tears had long run dry, that her puffy eyes didn't glisten in the light when she looked up to confront a man who could only be Albert Wesker. He regarded her coldly from the passage beyond her confinement, looking for all the world like some sleek, black predator, albeit more than a little ruffled and charred.

"Miss Redfield," he greeted, with a slight bow of his head.

"Go to hell," she told him flatly, turning her back on him, but unable to keep the scowl off her features.

From what she understood, he had been instrumental in almost killing Chris, Jill and Barry during the Arklay incident, the three of them the only real family she had left. On top of that, he had obviously hurt both Chris and Shak since this most recent nightmare had begun. If there was anyone she hated with a passion to rival what she felt for Alexia, it was him.

"Am I to assume that this boy was Lady Ashford's original test subject?" he asked her, this time earning himself a wild glare, which he pointedly ignored, "the experimental strain in his body would be of immeasurable value, if traded to the correct parties."

"I'll never let you take him," she snapped, fingers tightening possessively around Steve's pale arm, until they became as white as the skin they were pressed into, "you may as well give up right now. There's no way past that gate."

"On the contrary, my dear," he said, reaching out to curl gloved fingers around the wrought iron bars, before, with an effort that barely registered on his stoic features, he wrenched them apart with a squeal of tortured metal, "you are quite mistaken."

She recoiled, stunned and horrified, rising to her feet and backing away. Despite her contempt for him, she couldn't hide the surprise she felt witnessing his impossible strength. She watched him warily as he stepped through the wide gap he had created, taking another nervous pace back when he began to stride towards her. Whatever his intent, it wasn't benign.

But it wasn't in her nature to cower. Even injured, even facing some kind of demon in human skin, she wasn't going to back down. She'd faced bigger, more terrifying monsters than him. Her mind brought her back to Raccoon City, to her association with Annette Birkin. She remembered the older woman's insistence that people like the ones that ran the Umbrella Corporation couldn't be allowed to take what they wanted. She had no trouble in believing that Wesker was one of those people.

She stepped forward, placing herself between Steve and the blond, still clutching her wounded arm to her chest, but balling her left hand into a fist. There was no trace of disdain on his features, but she could tell from the confidence of his swagger that he felt she posed no threat to him. Sure enough, when he reached her and she struck out at him, he simply batted her aside, his blow throwing her over her fallen companion and into the stone column beyond.

She slumped to the ground painfully, her bones jolting inside her body at the triple impact of his hand, the wall and the floor. She tried to stand up, pushing herself onto her knees with her good arm. Something sliced her palm and she let out a gasp, realising that she had cut herself on a piece of the shattered halberd that Steve had used. It was still sharp as a razor, but small enough to fit in her hand, like a knife. Wesker's footsteps approached and she committed herself, closing her fingers around the metal shard, letting it slice into her flesh, but keeping it hidden.

His gloved hand encircled her throat and then he dragged her upright, pushing her back into the wall roughly. She watched as men in similar black uniforms to him followed his lead into the cell, lifting the limp body of her partner and carrying it back towards the hole in the barred gate. Her jacket dropped from his stomach and fluttered to the ground, the inside of it now slick with his blood. She growled as she watched them go, or as best she could with his palm pressed into her windpipe. It was almost too much for her to bear, but she knew she couldn't act now. She was outnumbered and hurt; if the blond didn't just snap her neck then his flunkies would shoot her dead.

"Perhaps it would be most prudent simply to eliminate you," he mused, adjusting his sunglasses nonchalantly upon the bridge of his nose with his free hand, lips turning up in a bloodless smirk, "how your brother would weep to see you die. Providing, of course, that he survives his altercation with Lady Ashford."

Claire struggled, but ultimately any movements she made were futile. His grip was too powerful; he held her in place with such ease and nothing she could do would shake him. In an instant, however, he changed their positions, twisting her away from the wall and seizing her broken arm, wrenching it up behind her back. She cried out, the pain almost driving her to her knees, but he held her where she stood, placing a hand to her shoulder and pushing her ahead of him.

"On the other hand, she may still wish to reckon with you for the death of her own brother; you may yet prove useful to me as an inducement to ensure her compliance," he informed her, before marching her roughly out of the chamber, and to the site of the final conflict.

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----

The Alexia-creature shrieked, grotesque features pulling back into a wounded howl as her bulbous body began to tear. Bloated sacs disgorged pus and bile across the platform, mercifully draining through the metal grille and down into the abyss below. Chris watched as the frail, almost skeletal, form of the Queen writhed and struggled atop her throne of malformed flesh.

Even as he looked on, her drones flew to her from the hive beneath their battleground, settling around her anchor and gnawing at the meat, severing her from the prison of her own dying carcass. The shriek became a hideous, contemptuous laugh as she rose, borne aloft on thin, vein-filled wings, tearing away from the decaying mass. She threw her head back, mirth descending into a sickening gurgle as acidic vomit rose in her throat, and she disgorged it in streams that bubbled and spat as they fell upon the steel at his feet.

He dove aside, narrowly avoiding a trail of hissing fluid aimed for his face, and heard the sound of a klaxon, different from the incessant blare of the facility's self-destruct announcement. Head snapping around, his eyes settled on the weapon that had been released from the wall, the imminent ruination of the Antarctic base causing its locks to disengage. His magnum was dry, his shotgun too; he hadn't even had the opportunity to empty the sub-machineguns before she'd whipped them out of his hands and into the chasm. The Linear Launcher, the last line of defence, was resting only metres away, turning his frustration into unbridled, giddy hope.

The fight was over.

He ran for it, wrapping his hand around the bulky grip, lacing his index finger around the trigger, and hefted it up, out of its immense metal holster and onto his shoulder. It was reassuringly heavy and also immeasurably simple. There was a safety catch along one side, a power gauge that showed the charge, an eyepiece with a targeting system, and the trigger. Release the first, wait for the second to fill, point the third at the target, and let fly with the last.

Without a moment's hesitation, he did just that, yanking back on the lever that would disengage the massive weapon's safety mechanism as the flying creature circled overhead. He watched, egging it on under his breath, as the bar beside it filled, lights changing from red to orange to yellow to green at what seemed like a snail's pace.

Alexia continued her assault, loosing streams of revolting, corrosive liquid in a desperate attempt to destroy him before he had time to bring the weapon to bear. He dodged, struggling under the weight of the cannon he was holding, feet sticking in the viscous remains of her previous mutation, as he waited for the telltale sign that it was fully charged. The buzzing monster overhead screamed as he avoided her bombardment, more animalistic frustration than human annoyance now that she was so far gone.

There was a musical chime, like an elevator stopping, and Chris glanced at his newfound saving grace to find that it was fully charged. He lifted it onto his shoulder, sighting through the scope as he tracked the flight of the last Ashford, fixing the crosshairs squarely on her corrupted features. She hovered, more like an insect ready to be swatted than a great and powerful Queen. The furious, glowing embers of her eyes locked with the glass lens of the eyepiece, and with the cool, sapphire orb behind it as his finger tensed.

"Game over," he said under his breath, firing the launcher.

A globe of throbbing, pulsating green energy exploded from the barrel. The recoil buckled his bad leg and sent him crashing onto his back in the sludge atop the platform. He grunted, looking up and hoping that his fall hadn't sent the projectile astray. There was an explosion, and an enormous, emerald flower blossomed outwards with Alexia at its centre, a supernova that expanded in a cascade of glowing effulgence, carrying her body with it, tearing her asunder particle by particle. Her skin dissolved, muscle tissue withering into nothing, internal organs evaporating, and bones turning to dust in the heat of the blast.

And then the miniature star collapsed in on itself, imploding as it burned to nothing, vanishing with a roaring, sucking sound, leaving only a faint mist where the last of the Ashford line had once been.

"The self-destruct system has been activated; this sequence cannot be aborted," an insistent female voice announced over the public address system, the thunderous rumble of an explosion from elsewhere on the base snapping him back to reality like a glass of cold water to the face, "all personnel evacuate immediately; I repeat..."

The message looped into infinity as Chris leapt to his feet, leaving the Linear Launcher where it lay, spent and too heavy to carry. He didn't know who had set the place to explode, but he knew one thing; without the cannon, he would never have beaten Alexia. In that sense, he was thankful. Unfortunately, that left him with limited time to get back to Claire, free her, and escape the facility.

He ignored the spasm in his leg as he ran to the stairway, clearing the first half dozen steps in a single bound and only stopping when he collided with the handrail at the bottom. He only just managed to stop himself from pitching into the abyss beyond. The second flight he took three steps at a time, shielding his face as the walls cracked and burst, each detonation gradually shaking the Antarctic base apart. He stumbled into the stone corridor that would lead him to the dungeon where he had last seen his sister, and stopped dead, cold sweat prickling his body.

He found himself staring into the soulless, glassy gaze of Albert Wesker, shades perched as ever before his eyes.

"Chris," his sister grunted, her arm wrenched back in a restraining hold by the towering blond standing behind her, his face set in a familiar neutral line as his hidden gaze took in the arrival of his enemy.

"Move," he insisted briskly, pushing the young woman in front of him through a fissure in the wall to his left, away from the elevator that would lead them back to the Harrier, refuelled and ready in its cradle.

"Claire, no!" he yelled, forced to watch as the girl he had pursued to the ends of the earth was separated from him yet again, dragged away by his superhuman nemesis.

He gave chase, grunting as the flames blossoming from the wall licked out at his bare skin. There was a corridor beyond the wall, one that had become accessible with the destruction wrought by the detonations. A figure loomed from the darkness, far too small to be Wesker, but too broad to be Claire and too tall to be the errant Shakahnna.

The zombie lurched forward, moaning hungrily, but he simply barrelled into it, his body weight throwing it roughly to the floor. Even as it hit the ground, he knew he'd had a lucky escape; if it had snagged him and pulled him down, he'd have been an easy target for the half dozen others gathered in the narrow passage. If he'd had a weapon, he'd have taken them out, even if he hadn't needed to. Though slow and predictable, they were still dangerous, and he didn't like the idea of leaving them alive, for even a moment. For now, though, all he could do was avoid them.

There wasn't any time to waste; he had to save his sister.

He sprinted down the corridor, avoiding the grasping, peeling hands of the undead as they appeared from the shadows around him. Clutching, decayed fingers snapped at his clothing, but he batted them away, bull-rushing any of the walking corpses that happened to be unlucky enough to get in his way. The temperature in the burning facility seemed to drop, and suddenly his breath turned to ivory wisps in the air, even as he charged full-tilt into the set of double doors at the end of the hallway, knocking them aside as he had done every obstacle so far.

The chamber beyond was an immense cavern, seemingly burrowed into the icy rock that the facility was part of. A huge concrete platform served as the stage for several dozen crates stacked randomly about the area, as well as a number of large crane rigs, probably used for loading. It was clear from the immense lake of clear, thinly-frosted water, which flowed through an enormous fissure at the very back of the cave, that it was primarily intended to be a dock. The sleek, metallic form of an ice-clad submarine floated idly in the reservoir.

Standing in front of him, awaiting his arrival, still clutching his sibling in a hold that had her broken arm twisted in a way it wasn't intended to go, was Wesker, a faint hint of amusement on his thin lips. Chris noticed that there wasn't any mist coming from his mouth or nose, but whether that was because he didn't breathe, or because he was simply stone cold, he couldn't begin to guess. Either seemed likely considering that he was dead.

"I must confess, I am surprised to see you alive, Chris," the black-clad male began, twisting the arm of the female in his grasp as she began to squirm, making her gasp in pain and riling her brother all the more, "it had been my intention to offer your sister to Lady Ashford as an incentive to return with me after your altercation was resolved."

"Sorry to disappoint you, but Alexia's toast," he said, smiling at the thought of saving the world, and upsetting the other man's plans into the bargain.

"That is no longer a concern to me," Wesker responded, pearl-white teeth showing in a momentary sneer, before his neutral expression reasserted itself, "your sibling's late lamented companion served as Lady Ashford's primary test subject, her patient zero, if you will. There yet remains an unaltered strain of the T-Veronica virus in his body that will be of immeasurable worth to my current employers."

"Bastard!" Claire snarled, wriggling in the painful hold as though the abnormally powerful male would have allowed her any slack whatsoever.

He quickly silenced her objections with an increase in the angle of her arm, so slight, but so effective that Chris could almost hear the tension in her bones increase. He was stressing the break, and the pain must have already been unbearable. Sure enough, his sister's legs turned to water beneath her, and it was only the blond's grip that kept her upright.

"Perhaps his demise will be no more permanent than my own," he responded, moving his mouth closer to her ear, his tone low and threatening, and as cold as the frigid air around them.

"Get your hands _off_ her, Wesker!" the younger male barked angrily, restraining himself from running forward, knowing full well how fast his adversary could react.

There was no way that he could reach them in time to stop him from hurting Claire; he didn't even have a gun to see if he was faster than a bullet.

"Though your dear sister would be of no importance to me ordinarily, I intend for her to play a vital role in our reckoning," he sneered, wrenching back on a fistful of her hair to bring her head up.

Chris growled quietly as he watched her squirm in agony, and almost missed the furtive downward glance she shot him. Keeping his frown from his features as best he could, he looked her over, seeing the blood flowing in thick, sticky strings through the knuckles of her unrestrained hand. It took him a moment to realise that the wound was self-inflicted. A shard of razor sharp metal, clearly chipped from something larger, was clutched in her fingers, and he realised that they were tightening around it reflexively with every twist of her arm.

Even so, she had a weapon; all she needed was an opportunity to use it.

And then, someone called his name. He turned to see Shakahnna running towards them from the doorway that they had emerged from, evidently having followed them. There were new pistols buckled to her thighs and underarms, her clothing padded with the bulk of cartridges and magazines scavenged from the facility's armoury. In her hand, she clutched her Colt, newly reloaded.

Without saying another word, she hurled the high calibre handgun to him, stopping as she did to rest her hands on her knees and take deep gulps of air. It fell short, skidding along the frosty concrete, but he was already on the move, diving expertly for the fallen weapon and gliding into a roll as he grabbed it. He snapped into a tense crouch, clasping it neatly between his hands, and drew a bead on the blond's forehead. In one fluid movement, he snapped off the safety and pulled the trigger, the gunshot echoing through the chamber.

Wesker's head blurred instinctively to the side, maintaining his hold on Claire's arm, but failing completely to notice as she spun into his grip, bringing her makeshift blade around in an arc. The metal sliced into his left cheek and across the bridge of his nose, knocking his sunglasses onto the ground and earning a grunt of both pain and annoyance from his mouth. She kicked out, slamming her foot into the space just above his kneecap, and used the distraction to shake free from his grasp with the sound of coffee-coloured tresses ripping from her scalp.

Free, she dropped the steel shard and bolted over to her brother, damaged right arm clutched to her chest, as he rose to his feet. He caught her with his free hand, keeping his new pistol aimed at the blond with the other, and clutched her tightly. Blinking tears out of her eyes, she wriggled out of his embrace and moved to his side, letting him put both hands to the Colt.

"What kept you, Shak?" Chris asked, as his redheaded partner bounded over, still breathing more heavily than usual, but having at least got over the worst of it.

"Don't like running," she informed him bluntly, "also, fuck off."

Unfortunately, their reintroduction was interrupted by the sound of cold, insidious laughter.

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----

Albert Wesker was not a man who was known for outbursts of emotion. Even so, he could not help but make his mirth known at seeing the gathering of three individuals on the icy pier. Here was the very man who had so effectively meddled in his well-organised affairs at the Arklay manor, standing alongside his beloved sister and another female with whom he held the bond of comradeship. Indeed, the situation would only have been made more perfect by the presence of his former subordinates in S.T.A.R.S, Mister Burton, Miss Valentine and Miss Chambers.

He did not imagine that his sibling would provide him with the amusement he desired, or her brother with much in the way of lengthy farewells, so to speak. Shakahnna, on the other hand, had the potential to persist for days, perhaps even weeks, under his ministrations. She would serve as a mere taste of the sadism he would impart, the better for Chris to see what lay in store for his blood relation. The dark-haired male's torment would atone for the past inconvenience that he had caused.

"This operation has been a rewarding experience," he informed them, moving his blood-slicked glove away from his scarred face, letting his prey watch as the wound pursed shut, leaving only a splash of crimson across his features, "Lady Ashford's research will soon be in the hands of my employers. It would appear that my only remaining obligations are to myself; all the better for me that the three of you have gathered here so conveniently."

"Oh, well, we're _so_ glad you're happy, cock-rot," the redhead yelled back at him, the tension in her voice along with the rigidity of her posture betraying what was most certainly fear, both for herself and her two companions, "really, we're _thrilled_ you're having a good day."

She seemed well aware of what he intended, possibly due to her experiences of Umbrella's holding facilities. However, if she truly believed that she knew the full extent of what awaited her once party to his hospitality then she would be sorely mistaken. His cruelty was a being all its own and not to be underestimated, particularly where it concerned his personal adversaries.

"Claire, get the hell out of here, now!" Chris ordered.

"Seriously, toots, no arguments; time to be running away," the other female insisted, silencing her objections with a wave of a clawed hand, before taking another of her salvaged sidearms and pressing it into her good hand, "listen, we've got to do this, so you just be sitting tight until your brother gets back to you. Don't worry; I'll take care of him."

"You aren't a soldier, _and_ you're wounded," the dark-haired male continued, concern clear in his voice, but the hard edge to his tone showed that he was not expecting to be argued with, "this is our fight. He's _our_ responsibility. As a surviving member of the Raccoon City S.T.A.R.S, I'm gonna take care of this traitor once and for all."

"You'll come back, right?" his sister asked, taking the gun that was offered to her and looking to her sibling with a pleading gaze, "you promise?"

"I promise," he told her flatly, turning his head to make eye contact with her quickly.

Wesker seized his opportunity, taking full advantage of the distraction presented to him, and lunged forward with an explosion of rushing air. They were, each of them, only human, susceptible to petty sentimentalities that dulled their focus during times when it was most necessary. He had simply waited for his adversary to spare his sister a fleeting moment of his attention, knowing full well that it would be all he needed to close the distance between them unimpeded.

Even as Chris turned back to confront him, he knocked away the weapon, a bullet bursting forth and spearing through the cold mist, before thrusting his palm forward into the other man's chest. The blow drove the air from his lungs and slammed him from his vertical base, sending him skidding away along the ice. Shakahnna charged forward to engage him, claws flashing as she sliced into the flesh of his forearm, but he simply rammed her with his shoulder, throwing her off her feet. She landed hard on the concrete, swearing loudly, even as the bloody lines she had carved into his arm vanished.

He bore down on the last of his three opponents, who backed away, levelling the pistol she had been given at him. Striding forward, he jerked to his left to avoid her first bullet and to his right to dodge the second, his pace never faltering. The third round, he allowed to impact on his chest, feeling the slug crumple on his flesh and fall away, leaving merely a blister of burned skin at the point of impact. Her eyes widened and she hesitated, retreating several steps as he continued to approach.

Something heavy leapt onto his back, a moment's thought identifying the attacker as the redhead he had shunted to the floor, who sank the blades on her right hand deep into the meat of his pectorals. She yelled for the brunette to escape and, seeing no option available, the younger woman complied, turning to run back in the direction they had come. In spite of her commendable tenacity and ingenuity in the past, she recognised the potential liability that she had become due to her injuries and proceeded with the only logical course of action. It seemed that his former subordinate had educated his sibling well.

The blond watched her depart with a degree of discontent. With her brother caught in a desperate struggle for his survival, there would be no one to pilot the Harrier that Wesker knew he had used to arrive. Thus, she would perish when the facility was finally destroyed. He had prescribed a pivotal function for her within his vengeful design; instead, her life would be squandered, a pity considering how useful she could otherwise have proven. All the same, it was not a matter that would cause him any undue concern. The object of his hateful motives was still within his grasp, as was his companion.

Perhaps, at a later juncture, he might even have occasion to reunite his former subordinate with the other individuals that had avoided their intended demise during the Arklay incident.

For now, however, subduing them was the focus of his attention. He reached up to take hold of the woman who had positioned herself on his back, her legs laced around his waist and her arms over his shoulders. Her response was to lash out with her free hand, slicing at the flesh of his searching fingers whenever they came close. He gripped her ankle instead and pulled her free from his body, allowing her full weight to dangle from his hold. Her matted and dirtied hair hung down to the ground beneath her as she let out a string of curses, swiping at him viciously with her talons.

The Colt in Chris's possession barked behind him, high-calibre slugs bursting in bloody puffs on his back, each impact jerking his body and staggering him. Discarding the female, permitting her to crumple into a heap on the ground, he turned his attention to his nemesis as the younger man lunged for him. His gloved fingers encircled his wrist, halting the heavy blow that had come a mere inch from flattening his slender nose. With a twist, he applied pressure to the captured limb, jerking his adversary off-balance, before kicking him in the stomach so hard that he flew backwards and bounced on the floor. Clutching at his pummelled midsection, he retched, bile spewing from his lips.

With an air of nonchalance, he casually disassembled the semi-automatic pistol he had taken from his opponent's possession, letting the pieces of it drop to the ground.

"I liked that gun, thou fucker!" Shakahnna yelled, as she threw herself back into the fray, tearing the front of his tactical vest to shreds, slicing thin cuts into his flesh that wept crimson almost instantly.

He weathered her frenzied attack, blocking her attempts to ram her blades deep into his body, but still sustaining the slashes from the tips of her elongated fingers. Blood trailed the length of his upper limbs as she sliced the skin of his muscular forearms to ribbons, but he remained undeterred by the pain, subtle as it was. He had honed his resilience well in the half year since his first death and he could scarcely feel the damage she inflicted, though her efforts were far from half-hearted.

Every wound she caused him sealed shut in an instant, his enhanced regenerative capabilities sustaining him in a battle that would have left an ordinary man dead in an instant. She drove her hands forwards, attempting to impale him with all ten of her claws, only for him to arrest her arms at the wrist. Their tips sat mere inches from his stomach, wriggling eagerly, her face alight with bloodlust as she pushed with all her might.

Chris rammed into his back, forcing him onto her poised talons, sharp edges slicing apart skin and sinew, sinking deep into the organs within his belly. He let out a growl, locking his jaw in a desperate attempt to suppress the anguish that the injury caused; even with his immortality, the feel of such a wound was still excruciating. He looked down into Shakahnna's glowing emerald orbs, alive with the thrill of the kill, earnestly hopeful that she had done enough to end his threat.

His response was simply to smile thinly at her, before lashing out with a hard right front kick, his boot hammering her gut and throwing her backwards away from him. Blood gushed down his front from the open wounds she left as he broke the grip that his former subordinate had around his waist, before swinging a powerful elbow strike behind him. The other man ducked the impact, lashing out with an uppercut that snapped his head back, before he responded, unfazed, with a ridge hand blow that collided with his right cheek. The markedly stronger hit spun him head over heels and dropped him on his back stiffly.

Even as he lay groaning, the blond turned his attention back to the young woman he had previously dispatched, watching as she struggled to her feet once again. Their effort was commendable, he felt, but neither of them could hope to match his abilities. His virus-enhanced form granted him the agility to move faster than the human eye could perceive, the resilience to survive any wound, and the strength to crush his adversaries utterly. The knowledge of his superiority was intoxicating, and made him thirst for a challenge, a true test of his might.

Once he had defeated them and taken them into his custody, he would allow them to recuperate and marshal their strength; perhaps then they would be able to provide him with that which he craved.

But still, Shakahnna charged for him again, staggering when he swatted her with a languid blow to the jaw. She reeled, swiping at the air in front of her as the jarring impact made her lose all sense of her surroundings. Smirking at her disorientation, he pursued her, slamming his fist into her side and sending her stumbling clumsily away again, before collapsing to one knee, flailing wildly for some kind of support. He advanced on her, gripping her jaw firmly and tilting her head back. She leered up at him, most unexpectedly, before driving the blades of her right hand into his crotch.

Jaw clenching again, this time even tighter than before, he altered his grip so that he was holding her around the throat, jerking her upright. The sudden movement caused her claws to stick in his flesh, each razor-sharp knife breaking free and leaving her with blunted stubs of metal at her fingertips. He carried her into the air, allowing her to flail ineffectually as he held her aloft, permitting her to slowly fall into unconsciousness.

Before she could pass out, however, Chris made his resurgence, snatching a piece of steel scaffolding from a nearby workbench and smashing it against his back. Still clutching the redhead, he turned, only to have the metal pipe hammered into the side of his cranium once, twice, and then three times in quick succession, each blow causing his head to jerk. He raised his free arm, allowing the rod to bend around the hard sinew as it came back for the fourth time, before seizing the weapon and delivering a punishing front kick to his stomach. He staggered backwards and then collapsed, coughing.

He felt Shakahnna's legs coil tightly around the length of his right arm, and then her weight jerked hard, dragging herself down to the ground and flipping him over her. Landing stiffly on his back, he reached out for her with his free hand, only for her boot to collide hard with his cheek as she scrambled backwards away from him. Incensed at the ignoble manner in which she had toppled him, he rose back to his feet, looking down at her as she pulled her grenade gun from its strap and aimed it into his face.

The weapon coughed, a canister bursting from its gaping mouth, a trail of smoke arching in its wake. With an almost nonchalant wave of his hand, he swatted the grenade aside and into the water beside the dock, where it detonated and sent a geyser shooting upwards from the surface.

"Your persistence is admirable, but ultimately futile," he informed them, as his opponents crawled to one another, struggling to stand up, "though you have never been the most intelligent of men, Chris, surely even you must appreciate my superiority. You bear witness to the emergence of a God."

"Yeah, because you aren't mental or anything," the woman sneered, voice thick with contempt, as she supported her colleague, and he in turn supported her.

"You're nothing but a two-faced, murdering freak," he added, "just another one of Umbrella's pets."

"I may have surrendered my humanity," he countered, "but my power is beyond that of even the strongest B.O.W. If you require a further demonstration, however, then I will be happy to oblige."

Allowing his thin, cruel smirk to grow into a more palpable display of delight, ivory tombstones revealed to the chill air, he surged forward, his speed faster than their eyes could register. He thrust a palm into each of their chests, throwing Chris backwards into a nearby crane rig, which he collided with and then slid down limply, while the female simply skidded away along the floor. Her grenade gun fell with a clatter, sliding into a nearby stack of crates.

"Magnificent, don't you think?" he asked, spreading his arms as though to invite an appraisal of his form, cultivated to a perfection surpassing humanity's feeble limits in a mere six months.

The other male failed to answer. Instead, his eyes turned upwards, focusing on something on the ceiling above, before they moved back to glance at him. Against his expectations, he saw a lopsided smile blossom on his former subordinate's features.

"Heads up, you son of a bitch," he said, wrapping his hand around a nearby lever and pulling it down.

His own eyes snapped up, narrowing when they spied the load of heavy steel beams suspended directly above. He growled when he realised his mistake, muscles tensing as he made ready to spring away, but even as he did, the crane's brake snapped off. The chain unravelled from the metal drum around which it was wound, and then the cacophonous noise of its burden plummeting to the ground thundered all around him as the immense struts pounded the concrete to dust. He glanced upwards as they fell, only to see one on a collision course with his head.

An affronted grunt escaped his lips, moments before there was an explosion of pain and then darkness.

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----

Chris sagged to the floor, body hurting like hell. Breathing was difficult; talking seemed impossible; standing hadn't even occurred to him, but he suspected that it was out of the question too. But he could hear the rumbling of the installation's gradual destruction, feel the shaking of the ground that told him how dangerous their situation was. He couldn't afford to waste anymore time; he had to get Shak, find his sister and the Harrier, and escape. It would only be a matter of minutes before the entire place came crashing down around them.

He lifted a hand, trying to roll over onto his front, but his battered frame felt almost paralysed. After an agonising few moments, he finally managed to get himself into a position where he could more easily climb back to his feet. With that, he staggered over to where the redhead was still lying, her face a mass of swelling from the blow she had taken to the jaw. He imagined he didn't look much better himself, and that she felt at least twice as bad as he did.

"Shak, come on," he insisted, stooping to tug at the front of her tactical vest, "time to leave."

She stirred slightly, groaning, and then there was another, similar noise that made the dark-haired male's blood run cold. The sound of metal scraping on concrete emanated from the jumbled pile of fallen girders, and when he looked up he saw the mound fall away, rumbling like thunder. He grabbed at the pistol holstered on his partner's right thigh, the twin of the Glock that he had given to Claire, and wrenched it loose, aiming it at the shifting scrap iron as it moved.

Rising from the heap of twisted metal, like a dark God from a violated tomb smashed to rubble, Albert Wesker loomed to his full height, pushing aside the beams that had so miserably failed in killing him.

"A commendable effort," the blond acknowledged, though his expression was taut with anger, or at least the closest approximation of anger that would ever manifest on his stoic features.

"Cunt should just stay fucking dead," the voice of his partner groaned from somewhere at his feet, before she rolled over and tried to push herself up. He looped his free hand into her harness and helped her along as best he could.

She clambered to a shaky vertical base as the blond freed himself from the small steel hillock he had been buried beneath, and Chris began to wonder how they could ever win this fight. It seemed almost like he couldn't die, no matter what they threw at him. Still, if they had no chance of surviving the facility's destruction, he'd at least like to hope that Wesker wouldn't be leaving there alive either. Even if a ton of metal to the head hadn't killed him, being blasted to bits might just do the trick.

On cue, there was a detonation so close that it caused the entire dock to tremble, making them all stagger. A wall ruptured, debris spraying across the chamber as flames belched out from the fissure, the fire wreathing and climbing like tendrils of ivy. The heat began to encroach upon the cold, and the burning devastation promised to claim the entire installation before the ice could finally win out against it. The metaphor was striking; despite their passion, despite their zeal, Wesker was an all-consuming force that would eventually snuff them out if the conflict continued.

Their confrontation simmered, their enemy flexing his fingers and glaring through narrowed, inhuman eyes, poised to strike at any moment, while they watched and waited, weapons raised.

There was a deafening roar, and all three of them turned as one, clamping their hands over their ears in unison as the explosion rang out, shaking the room with its noise alone. The wall of the dock, formed from an immense concrete barricade beneath the carved bedrock of the cavern, gave way, splitting like a sheet of paper with a terrible, gut-wrenching tearing noise. The sheer sound of it was enough to send their virally-enhanced opponent into agonised spasms, his powers betraying him and leaving him reeling. There was, after all, a downside to having ears so sensitive.

The immense form of one of the installation's cooling towers crashed into the chamber, dripping slates as it shook apart with the continuing eruptions. Chris watched it fall and yelled out an unintelligible warning to his partner, diving aside as the structure came crashing down, trailing flames behind it as it ripped loose from its foundations. It exploded across the dock, cutting their battleground in half with a wall of flaming debris, a haze of choking dust rising up all around. The jarring rumble rattled his brain in his skull. He covered his head to shield himself from the rain of hot shrapnel, searing clay fragments, baked in the fire, falling down around him and forcing him to roll in an attempt to avoid the worst of it.

Shak and Wesker simply vanished.

In the aftermath, the charred stone column lay smouldering in the trench it had made with its collapse. The chasm in the wall yawned wide like a gaping mouth with a thousand whispering tongues, each the colour of autumn, each with the fierceness of the sun. He clambered back to his feet, coughing in the acrid smoke rolling from the wreckage. The chill from the cold air that his adrenaline had blocked out during the fight was now replaced with unpleasant, sickly warmth. More dust settled in his wounds, creating sediment with the grit from the battle with Alexia.

He looked for Shak, yelling her name between bouts of coughing as the cloud of atomised debris settled in his throat. Wherever she was, he hoped that the chamber's integrity would hold long enough for him to find her, dead or alive. At least if it was the latter, he could reaffirm his vow of vengeance against Wesker and Umbrella. He didn't want to not know, or he'd spend the rest of his life wondering if there had been anything he could have done to save her.

A gust from the fissure at the dock's entrance, which led out onto the icy ocean, parted the smog and the looming figure of Wesker once again became visible. He was standing, upright and unfazed, the charred remains of his flak jacket and uniform shirt hanging from his bloodied torso in tatters. His flesh was covered in dark, raw burn tissue, almost like scales; fitting that he'd shed his human skin to look more like the snake, the cold-blooded, reptilian monster, he really was. His features were marred by it, and rivulets of gore from his shredded torso ran along his arms and from the end of his fingers.

That he was still alive and able to stand spoke volumes for his superhuman resilience.

"You have been fortunate today," he observed, his voice tense with barely constrained agony, his usually neutral expression nothing more than a mask of ugly scarring, "when next we meet, there _will_ be a reckoning."

There was another detonation, a section of the rocky ceiling plummeting through the frost atop the manmade bay and sending an eruption of icy water skyward. The vision of his nemesis vanished amid the smoke once again.

Chris realised with a sinking feeling that the facility was falling apart and that it would be now or never for both Claire and himself to escape. He scanned the fallen debris, praying to any God that would listen, but he could find no sign of the missing redhead. There was nothing left to do but keep his promise to his sister, to go back to, and escape with, her.

He made another promise, this time to Shakahnna, swearing to finish what they had started that day, as he consigned her to the fiery grave, soon to be swallowed by the white oblivion beyond the walls.

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----


	10. Finale: Out Of The Ashes

**Finale: Out Of The Ashes**

Wesker's body hummed with anguish, wracked with the manifold tortures that the burning wreckage had imparted when it had slammed down over him. Even the blow to the head he had taken from the steel girders had not hurt him quite so profoundly, and the damage he had suffered would require days, perhaps even weeks, of intensive recuperation on his part. Until he had honed the regenerative process, he would wear these scars for the foreseeable future, marks that would serve as an admonition against further hubris. He had been foolish to allow the battle to last as long as it had, to the extent that it had even jeopardised his own safety.

Admittedly, he was unsure if it was possible for him to die, but then, he had died once already and hadn't cared for the experience.

He turned away from his confrontation with his nemesis, casting off the ravaged remains of the clothing that was hanging in strings from his torso, tearing it away from where it was fused into his wounds. His trousers remained, to preserve his modesty, though his scarring alone covered his entire form.

It was then that he spied a figure lying several metres away, sprawled upon the floor in a position that suggested death, or proximity to it. Her body had landed on its front, her face pressed to the concrete, putrid water pooling about her cheek where the frost on the dockside had melted, mixing with dirt and dust and grit and her blood. Her right arm was tucked beneath her midriff, the claws potentially stabbing into her torso if she were unfortunate, while her left arm was twisted at an inappropriate angle, almost certainly broken in several places.

Lacerations that had been carved from the inside by shattered bones marred her flesh, already pink with burn scarring. Her legs were splayed, the left pierced by a steel rod, most probably blasted from the fallen stack like shrapnel to skewer her thigh. The right was missing the majority of its foot, leaving only the heel and half of the sole still attached. Her clothing was charred to cinders in places, blotches of skin showing through her shredded combat equipment, revealing those areas that had been seared and scorched by the flames until black.

She was most likely dead, another casualty of the operation, another S.T.A.R.S member he had indirectly caused the demise of.

He strode over to her prone form, leaning down to roll her over and staring into her almost serene expression, but for the scarring she possessed, both old and new. One eyelid hung limp where the orb beneath had burst and thick, dark blood was pouring from beneath, a gory tear for her own pitiable fate. Ignoring the mutilations, he pressed his crimson-slicked fingers to her neck, feeling, by some miraculous happenstance, the fluttering of a weak pulse, faint but not so faint that his improved senses could not locate it.

Her death would be of no great concern to him; indeed, it had been his goal, through one means or another. Still, the fact remained that she possessed an immunity to the Tyrant virus, and such qualities were entirely too valuable to be squandered. If she could be saved then it would be prudent to do so.

He stooped, scooping her ravaged body into his arms and holding her tightly to his own ruined form, before turning towards the submarine's boarding ramp. His soldiers had already embarked several minutes ago, and were simply awaiting his return to commence their departure. Providing she survived the journey to the oil refinery and outpost that his employers maintained several dozen miles from the coast, she could potentially prove undeniably useful.

And, although Wesker was notorious for his lack of sentimentality, if there was one thing he appreciated in an individual it was usefulness.

-----x-----x-----x-----x-----x-----


End file.
